http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/central-coast/wesley-barton-jailed-fo...A TEENAGER who bashed an elderly blind man after bumming a cigarette off him and “put the boot in” to him as he lay in the gutter has been sentenced to three months’ jail.
Wesley Barton was drunk and hanging around Mann St in the heart of Gosford’s CBD about 10pm on March 1 when he approached 62-year-old vision-impaired man John Jenkins as he waited for a bus and asked him for a smoke.
The recovering stroke victim obliged but after handing the 19-year-old a cigarette, Barton punched Mr Jenkins to the ground anyway for no reason.
Occupants in a passing car saw Barton then stand over the blind man as he lay in the gutter in torrential rain and deliver a savage kick to his torso.
Barton was arrested a short time later and charged with assault occasioning actual body harm and common assault. He told police he had no memory of doing it.
Nineteen year old Wesley Barton, of North Gosford, pleaded guilty to assaulting the 62-year-old blind man. Picture: Facebook
The unemployed teenager was supposed to have a job interview for an apprenticeship this morning but instead he faced a sentencing hearing at Gosford Local Court which heard he was on a 12-month good behaviour bond at the time of the unprovoked attack.
The court also heard he had subsequently been charged with two more separate offences including malicious damage and affray.
Barton pleaded guilty to kicking in a door panel of a commercial Mitsubishi van at Brooklyn in December after the driver made some remark to a young woman “who was in his company”.
He also pleaded guilty to affray after kicking out and hurling a street sign at a car near the Gosford Leagues Club on January 3.
Magistrate David Day described assaulting a random stranger, let alone someone wearing his vision-impaired glasses and carrying a white cane “who anyone in Australia’ would know was blind, as “reprehensible” and “cowardly”.
“What if he had killed his innocent victim?” Mr Day asked Barton’s Aboriginal Legal Services solicitor.
“It was lucky for him, it was not out of planning or good management he finds himself being dealt with in the local court.
“You don’t assault strangers and you particularly don’t assault strangers by putting in the boot while they are on the ground.”
Dressed in a blue button-up shirt with a white collar and cuffs and brown pants, Barton was put in the dock as the magistrate sentenced him to 12 months’ jail but reduced it by 25 per cent for his early guilty pleas to nine months, with a
non-parole period of three months.
He put Barton on further good-behaviour bonds for the affray and malicious damage offences and ordered he pay $600 in compensation to the owner of the vehicle he kicked at Brooklyn.
Barton’s solicitor immediately lodged an appeal against the severity of the sentence. there is a nice picture of this nice young man leaving court with his middle finger UP>
Forum
Pages: 1 
