Lager can DNA catches attacker

3:33pm Friday 9th May 2008

A NINETEEN year old Winsford man who assaulted a train guard was convicted thanks to DNA evidence on a can of lager.

Robert Bownes, from Station Road, in the town was sentenced to six months in prison after he knocked a train guard down a flight of stairs at Winsford station in October 2006.

DNA evidence recovered from the empty drink can led British Transport Police officers to arrest Bownes a year later.

Vale Royal Magistrates Court found him guilty of causing actual bodily harm to the guard.

It sentenced Bownes to detention at a youth offenders institute and ordered him to pay £200 compensation.

Bownes was also sentenced to a further 21 days (to run concurrently) for failing to surrender to police bail earlier in the investigation.

The guard had been travelling on a train from Liverpool Lime Street with a group of youths who were causing a nuisance.

The youths got off the train at Winsford Station and an altercation ensued between the guard and one of them over a ticket.

When the guard followed the group up a flight of stairs in a bid to stop one of them, he down a flight of approximately 7-10 stairs and received a cut to the head and injuries to his hip and abdomen.