A YOUNG yob who attacked a woman’s front door with an axe during a violent rage has walked free from court.

Luke Russell smashed a door panel when he turned up at the woman’s home, who had known for a few months, while she had friends visiting, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The 19-year-old battered at the front door of the property in Colburn, North Yorkshire, after he turned up on her doorstep unannounced while the victim’s children were in the house.

Michael Cahill, prosecuting, said Russell appeared to be ‘angry and in drink’ when he started swinging the axe around and smashed a panel in the door.

A neighbour managed to take the axe off the defendant and the woman took it into the house while the police were called.

Russell, of Whitcliffe Grange, Richmond, pleaded guilty to possession of an offensive weapon and criminal damage following the events of December 5 last year.

Brian Russell, in mitigation, said his client was remanded into custody for around a month before being released last month on electronically monitored curfew while on bail.

He added: “He cannot remember what happened that day and it is clear from the report that there had been the excessive consumption of alcohol.”

The judge was urged to spare his client from a custodial sentence after serving time while on remand.

Judge Chris Smith passed a two-year community order and placed him on a tagged curfew for four months.

He said: “You went round to that house when you were drunk and angry, you had an axe and then you set about the door.

“It will have been a frightening episode and there were children in that house.

“People who do that sort of thin go to prison normally, there are guidelines which say judges should send people to prison for about 18-months for this sort of thing, but you have spent some time in prison thinking about this and you have been on a curfew as well.

“And so, because of that, I am not going to send you to prison today, I am going to pass a community order.”

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