Dog walker armed himself with baseball bat in Nether Langwith right of way row

Neil Mason was challenged by one of the men who were sitting in a garden adjacent to the field he was in at Lakeside, on August 19, last year, Nottingham Crown Court was told.

The man asked if Mason was a shareholder and entitled to use the land and this prompted a struggle which was captured on CCTV and showed force being used by both men.

Mason, aged 57, swore at the trio and told then he would be back, the court heard.

He returned about 20 minutes later, accompanied by two younger men, and let himself into the garden wielding a thin baseball bat.

When Mason produced a knife from his back pocket, one man fended him off with a chair while a second picked up a shovel.

A struggle over the baseball bat ensued in which he “caused obvious fear and distress to all three men”. Mason was arrested five hours later smelling heavily of alcohol.

At the time of the offence, the court heard, he was serving a court order for a battery committed in 2022.

Gareth Gimson, mitigating, said Mason lives nearby and regularly walked a dog that belongs to another shareholder of the land.

Mason of Limes Avenue, Nether Langwith, admitted affray and possessing a blade at a previous hearing.

On Tuesday, Judge James Sampson told him it was “a wholly unnecessary altercation” and said he behaved “like a juvenile lout”.

“To compound matters further you took a knife and baseball bat into this man’s garden, seeking some sort of revenge,” he said.

“I don’t want to pass a sentence that is out of proportion with what happened on the day. You have some troubling previous convictions which are probably alcohol-related.”

He imposed a nine-month sentence, suspended for 21 months, with ten rehabilitation days, a six-month alcohol treatment programme and 120 hours of unpaid work.

“Mr Mason, you’re on a bad trajectory at the moment,” the judge warned him. “Sort yourself out.”