A MAN who left two men with fractured skulls after he launched an unprovoked attacked with a wooden bat has been jailed for four years.
Jailing Matthew McNally (30) at Craigavon Crown Court, Judge Patrick Lynch KC said the injuries sustained were “more serious than many others” in GBH cases.
McNally, from Drumgor Heights in Craigavon, had earlier entered guilty pleas to two counts of including grievous bodily harm with intent.
Prosecuting lawyer Joseph Murphy outlined how the two victims had just got out of a Ford Fiesta in the Drumgor estate when McNally, armed with a white wooden bat, approached them.
In an incident captured on CCTV, McNally can be seen marching up to the men and according the PPS, he was demanding to know who had been talking about him, his body language obviously aggressive as he stands very close to them, pacing back and forth.
In the short but shocking video, McNally fells the first victim with a full force blow to the side of the head but when he is on the ground, he strikes the second victim and as the first man gets up, the victims ran away, chased by McNally and a second assailant who has not been identified.
Mr Murphy explained it was while off camera that the most serious aspect of the assaults occurred in that the first victim was able to get back to his car and saw McNally using the bat to smash all of the windows but when he drove off, found the other victim lying bleeding on a grass verge, his head and clothes covered in blood.
An off duty health worker also found him and she summoned help, talking to the victim and keeping him conscious until paramedics arrived.
The court heard while both men sustained skull fractures, the second victim’s injuries were more significant in that he had suffered a bleed on the brain, broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a compressed spinal fracture.
Both men have made good physical recoveries.
Defence KC Gregory Berry conceded that while it had been a “brutal assault,” he highlighted that McNally had confessed his guilt and that he had been suffering drink and drug addiction issues since the age of 11.
Jailing McNally, the judge said had it not been for his guilty pleas he would have imposed a 10 year sentence.