Thug attacks mum and punches dad in jaw ... but walks free from court

10:10am Thursday 17th July 2008

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A THUG who sent his father into a diabetic shock when he punched him in the jaw minutes after assaulting his mother will not go to prison.

Warrington Crown Court heard on Friday how Christopher Holmes struck his father in the face – four months after the shopkeeper had surgery to remove a cancerous growth from his jaw.

"This was not only a cowardly attack on your aged parents but also a despicable act"

Recorder Michael Blakey

Mr Recorder Michael Blakey said: “This was not only a cowardly attack on your aged parents but also a despicable act.”

But the judge handed Holmes an eight-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered him to carry out 12-month supervision and substance addiction courses.

Joanne Parsons, prosecuting, said Holmes’ parents, a couple in their mid-50s, had previously taken out a restraining order against their son, which prevented him from calling at Grappenhall Post Office, the shop they run and live above on Lindi Avenue.

However, the order had expired when Holmes, from Higham Avenue, in Dallam, visited on June 3 this year, around 8.30pm.

The 34-year-old said he wanted to apologise for an earlier argument.

But when his mother and father asked him to leave he demanded cigarettes and began shouting, before forcing his way through the door, pushing back on his mother’s neck and scratching her skin.

She described her son as “behaving like a raging bull” as he shoved his father along the hallway into the kitchen.

Holmes punched his father to the right side of his jaw, knocking him to the floor.

He stole three packs of cigarettes from the post office before returning to the kitchen, where his father was still on the floor suffering from a diabetic shock.

The lout then threw bits of bacon at his helpless victim.

Holmes, who pleaded guilty to two assaults and theft, has 18 previous convictions for 60 offences.

Simon Leong, defending, said Holmes had been drunk during the incident and alcohol was a factor in his past offending.