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Victim of Wagon Wheel row thankful for tickets from Nathan Carter

Nathan Carter fan Jason Kane. Picture by Mark Jamieson
Nathan Carter fan Jason Kane. Picture by Mark Jamieson Nathan Carter fan Jason Kane. Picture by Mark Jamieson

A CO Derry man whose windows were broken by a neighbour fed up hearing Nathan Carter's Wagon Wheel has thanked the country star for an offer of free tickets.

Jason Kane (26), of The Elms in Coleraine's Ballysally estate, said he was the singer's "biggest fan".

But he added that he and his fiancee, who was six months pregnant with twins at the time, had been terrified by the attack.

Carter offered tickets to his Belfast show in October after a court heard Stephen Leighton (53) flew into a rage and damaged Mr Kane's home after listening to his biggest hit being played repeatedly.

Leighton, who lives in a flat downstairs, was given a suspended prison term for criminal damage at Coleraine Magistrates Court on Monday.

A defence barrister claimed he felt he was enduring "some sort of psychological torture".

The court heard Leighton stormed up a communal stairwell and yelled: "If I hear Wagon Wheel one more time I'm going to break that stereo."

Mr Kane said Leighton still lives downstairs but the pair no longer speak.

"I had gone on fine with him and I have been in here almost a year now... until I played Nathan Carter one night and - boom," he said.

"I think I was playing it for an hour straight. It is an album and it was not just Wagon Wheel but that is the tune that stuck in his head.

"It was serious at the time because my fiancee Bronagh was here and she was pregnant with our two twin girls Madison and Olivia who are now four weeks old and thankfully she was okay and there were no complications."

Mr Kane said he still plays Carter's songs.

"I still play it. My aunt told me today Nathan was talking about me and I said 'happy days'," he said.

Following the court case, Carter posted a picture on social media of himself beside copies of The Irish News after the story was featured on the front page.

The Liverpool-born singer, who released the hit Wagon Wheel in 2012, later said he would provide gig tickets to his fan.

"It's obviously a pretty serious story but I couldn't help but laugh that someone had been outraged by this song so much that they'd take the law into their own hands," he told Today FM.

"But the poor man had his property broken and obviously he's a big fan so I said I must hunt him out and give him a few tickets so we've sorted him out and he's going to come along to the show.

"To be fair, there are probably a lot of people who don't like that song but I know there are a lot of people who do, I'm very lucky about that, but I'd say if you play any song on repeat 24 hours a day it would be annoying."