Robert Smith (Image: Dyfed-Powys Police)
Last Updated: 2 minutes ago
A woman who invited a homeless friend to stay the night was left needing hospital treatment after he smashed a vase into her face during an unprovoked attack at her Aberystwyth home.
Robert Smith, 35, of no fixed abode, has been sentenced to a total of 15 months in prison at Swansea Crown Court after admitting assault occasioning actual bodily harm and criminal damage.
The attack
Smith had been spending time with the woman – a family friend – on January 20 this year when, after mentioning he would otherwise be sleeping on the beach, she offered him somewhere to stay for the night.
The pair spent time talking and drinking alcohol together, and initially there were no problems. But Swansea Crown Court heard that Smith’s behaviour then changed without explanation.
He began destroying items in the woman’s home before arming himself with a knife and screwdriver. Smith then picked up a vase and struck the victim to the head, smashing it on impact.
As the woman bled heavily from a forehead wound, the court heard he tried to drag her – described as “terrified” – into the shower to wash the blood from her face.
Police arrival
Samuel Jenkins, prosecuting, told the court that when officers arrived at the property they found Smith asleep on the sofa with a knife and a can of alcohol on the floor beside him. Smashed objects were strewn around the room.
When woken, Smith told police “I have done nothing wrong” before becoming verbally aggressive. He had to be taken to the ground and arrested due to his behaviour.
The victim’s injuries
The woman attended Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth where a 3cm-4cm wound to her forehead was cleaned and glued shut.
In an impact statement read to the court, she said the attack had worsened her existing depression and anxiety, and had “profoundly effected” her day-to-day life.
Previous record
The court heard Smith has 20 previous convictions for 61 offences, including assaults by beating and criminal damage. At the time of the attack on his friend, he was subject to a two-year community order for battery.
Mitigation
Dean Pulling, representing Smith, told the court his client had been assessed as having “significant, multiple, and complex needs” including ADHD, depression, anxiety, and psychosis. He had also suffered several traumatic family bereavements and a serious brain injury requiring emergency surgery at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
The barrister said Smith had previously held down employment – including a role with Network Rail – but said his difficulties were “exacerbated by his entrenched and chronic drug misuse”. A pre-sentence report had concluded Smith was no longer suitable for community-based intervention.
Sentencing
Judge Geraint Walters told Smith that over the years he must have cost “decent, hard-working people who pay their taxes” a fortune, and said the time may have come for him to change his life and “pay back a little of what others have invested in you”. Smith replied “Yes sir”.
The judge warned that only Smith himself could make the necessary changes, and said that if he did not, he would one day turn around “to find life will have passed you by”.
Smith received a 12-month prison sentence with a 20 per cent discount for his guilty pleas. The judge also revoked the existing community order and re-sentenced him to three months in prison for those matters, to run consecutively – making a total sentence of 15 months. He will serve up to half in custody before being released on licence.
