A man currently serving a three year sentence for conspiracy to rob a bookies shop has admitted attacking another man over an alleged drugs debt.
Luke Laidlaw, 24, was due to go on trial at Mold Crown Court after denying a charge of assault, occasioning actual bodily harm.
But the jury was sent home when the court was told that Laidlaw had not been produced and was in Park Prison in Cardiff.
This afternoon he appeared in court via a live television link when a new trial date was due to be fixed – but he changed his plea to guilty.
Judge Niclas Parry imposed a six month prison sentence but said rather exceptionally it would be concurrent with his existing prison sentence and would not extend his release date.
The aggravating features were obvious – a weapon had been used to cause injury and it was an attack at the victim’s own home.
He had now pleaded guilty and the judge said that he had to bear in mind the fact that he was currently serving a three year sentence for conspiracy to rob.
The question was whether he would have received an additional sentence if both matters had been dealt with together.
It was important that the assault occurred a short time before the robbery, the court heard.
Prosecuting barrister Paulinus Barnes told how in July of last year a man answered an early Sunday morning knock at the door of his home in Saltney Ferry.
A woman was there over an alleged £30 drugs debt and the defendant was with her.
He was said to have produced something sharp from his pocket and punched the victim to the face.
His face immediately bled, police and ambulance were called and he was taken to hospital where he was treated for a cut above the eyebrow.
The court heard how Laidlaw was one of two men previously jailed after plotting to rob the manager of a bookmakers as he returned from a bank with an envelope full of cash.
Laidlaw followed the victim from the NatWest bank in Hoole, Chester, and wrestled £3,000 from him.
Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob at Chester Crown Court.
Laidlaw, then of Orchard Way, Garden City, Deeside , was said to have intercepted shortly after he left the Hoole bank, hit him around the head and engaged in a “tussle” to wrench the envelope from his grasp.
Eventually the envelope ripped open and Laidlaw ran off with the money.
In 2011, Laidlaw was sentenced to youth custody after a stand off with police in which he sat on the roof of a building in Station Road, Queensferry , and threw roof tiles down at them while brandishing a machete and snorting cocaine.
see-http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/deeside-man-jailed-over-alleged-10633320
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