Post by Focus on Mar 1, 2013 8:48:17 GMT
A grandfather who frogmarched an 11-year-old boy home to his parents after suffering a campaign of vandalism has had to pay the youngster £50 compensation and has been convicted of assault.
David Crompton, 62, took hold of the youngster by the scruff of the neck after a stone hit his window.
Crompton said he had put his home up for sale as a result of the hearing
The retired joiner escorted the boy home in the hope his mother and father would give him a telling off.
Instead he found himself under arrest and in court after the parents contacted the police.
It was claimed that Crompton accidentally pushed the boy’s face into the door handle while calling on the family.
Crompton, who had a clean record, pleaded guilty to assault at Blackburn magistrates’ court.
He was given a conditional discharge for 12 months and ordered to pay £50 compensation and £215 costs.
After the case, Crompton, who has three daughters and four grandchildren and lives with his wife Christine, 58, said he had put his home up for sale as a result of the hearing.
“It’s absolutely ludicrous,” he said. “I only went out to prevent my windows being smashed and I never for one second thought I’d have to go through court or have to pay anything. It was dreadful, a complete shock.
“All I have done is taken the lad back to his house to tell his parents what he had been up to. I was shocked at their reaction, I was expecting them to be cross with him to teach him a lesson.
“They shouted at me and I thought: 'What’s the use?’ So I turned round and walked home.
“Next thing I know, the mother comes banging on my door yelling she’d have me done for assault and then I’m the one in court for assault.
“In my day, the parents would have had a strong word with the child if something like this would have gone on.
“As a child I would have never dared to do something like this, but it is obviously a sign of the times.”
The court was told the boy and his friends were playing in the street when Crompton came out of his home and grabbed a girl who started crying. He then grabbed the boy and took him home where he banged his face into the door.
Crompton said: “My house has been plagued by kids throwing stones. When we first moved in it was really bad, lads would climb up on my garage roof and jump over on to our house roof and run along it.
“I spent more than £1,000 on my windows, which I put in myself, so I’m obviously going to be protective of them.”
Crompton said he was drinking a cup of tea when he saw the boy, crouched down and egging on a girl, who was standing in his garden.
He went outside and held the girl by the arm. She started crying because she was caught in the act. He then walked up the street and found the boy, who he grabbed by the scruff of the neck.
He marched him home. “I did this because I didn’t want the police involved,” he said. “They were only young.
“Now I wish I had just called the police straight away and that’s what I will do from now on.”
The boy’s father said yesterday their son had been an innocent party.
“My son was really intimidated and was left with a bruise under his eye after this man lost his temper,” he said.
“This man needed to answer for what he did. The fact he barely got a slap on the wrist is a joke” -- THIS IS JUST SO WRONG!! - Fx
