Robber left karate man brain damaged

Mar 28 2008 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail

A MAN was yesterday jailed indefinitely after robbing a young karate expert in a street in Rhyl, causing him brain damage.

Mold Crown Court heard that no one knew how victim Alan David Jones, 20, had suffered a blow to the head.

But he had been left in a pool of blood in the street, the way he lay had probably caused breathing difficulties, and that had caused brain damage and a weakening of his upper and lower limbs.

Defendant Michael Paul Wilkinson, 35, of Princess Street in Rhyl, admitted robbing Mr Jones of his watch and phone in the early-morning attack last October.

Wilkinson, who had previously launched an unprovoked attack on a taxi driver, was told that he constituted a danger to others and was sentenced to a potentially indefinite sentence for the protection of the public.

Judge John Rogers QC said that if Wilkinson had been convicted after a trial then he would have been jailed for nine years.

He received full credit for pleading guilty, which would bring the sentence down to six years.

That meant by law he would have to serve three years before he could seek parole, but the judge warned him that he would not be released until it was considered that he was safe “to be out and about among the public.”

The court heard how Mr Jones was self-employed as a gas engineer and was also a black belt karate instructor.

But he knew nothing of the attack which left him semi- conscious in the street with a fractured jaw and cheekbone, damaged teeth and lacerations to the head and face.

He had been in hospital for five-and-a-half weeks and was found to have had brain damage which had also caused a weakening of the limbs. It had changed his life completely.

Prosecutor Karl Scholz said that at 1.45am CCTV film showed Wilkinson in an injured state riding along a street in Rhyl on his bicycle.

He had been involved in an incident of violence but that was nothing to do with Mr Jones. Wilkinson was later filmed being belligerent with police.

The film showed him leaving his bicycle to go down an alleyway to urinate – and it was then that Mr Jones approached the bike and tried to ride it.

Almost immediately, the defendant confronted him, Mr Jones dropped the bike and ran away. After a short chase, the defendant jumped on his bike and pursued Mr Jones and clearly caught up with him.