Attacker smashed way into bathroom using a hammer to inflict 'terrifying ordeal'

MAN JAILED FOR NEARLY 10 YEARS HAD PREVIOUSLY CHASED BOYS ARMED WITH A KNIFE AND THREATENED TO KILL THEM

- By MARTIN NAYLOR

A HAMMER-wielding thug used the weapon to smash his way into a locked bathroom before attacking the terrified victim who had barricaded herself inside.

Derby Crown Court heard how moments earlier, James Banyard had deliberately driven his van into his victim's parked car, before causing £32,000 of damage to the house where she lived near Belper.

And a month earlier, the 46-year-old, left a different family terrified and locked in their own home when he chased two boys around armed with a kitchen knife saying he was “going to kill them”.

Jailing him for nine years and 10 months, Judge Jonathan Straw said: “It was a hard and deliberate blow which caused a serious injury to the victim's face. I have seen the injuries, they are horrendous.

“While the hammer wasn’t used to cause injury it was used to gain entry and cause terror.

“Everything was designed to terrify her. You subjected her, from first to last, to the most terrifying, targeting and violent ordeal. It was not spontaneous, it was premeditated.

“She took refuge in the bathroom, she was desperately and urgently trying to think of ways to calm you down and summon help.

“You smashed her phone and delivered the most violent punch to her which smashed her eye socket.