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Twist of fate as Dylan fan victim of bloody attack
When Bob Dylan fan Patrick Ross pulled up in his driveway at midnight listening to a track from the singer's Blood on the Tracks album the title was to prove frighteningly prophetic.
The 61-year-old grandfather only wanted to hear the end of the ballad Simple Twist of Fate while his wife made him a cup of tea after an evening out.
As the music played he saw a man looking in the window of his house in the village of Cridling Stubbs, near Knottingley. So he jumped out of the car and told him to clear off.
The man, David Bullough, 41, who lived nearby and had been out walking his pit bull dog, swore at Mr Ross and told him to turn off the CD player but then appeared to leave.
Mr Ross, an electrical engineer, went inside his house and was telling his wife Janet, 53, what had happened when they heard banging noises outside.
They looked out to see Bullough smashing up their company car with a baseball bat. When Mr Ross ran outside clutching a garden rake Bullough turned on him.
Mrs Ross, 53, watched in horror as her husband was beaten and bitten. Bullough continued his assault before being dragged off by a neighbour who heard the screams.
The attack in August last year left Mr Ross with a torn ear, four broken ribs and detached retinas. It also cost Bullough his liberty as he was jailed for two and a half years at York Crown Court.
Judge Stephen Ashurst said: "You became enraged because the complainant had the temerity to sit in his own drive, in his own car listening to music.
"But you did not leave it there. You returned to the scene with a baseball bat, began attacking his car and then hit him about the body and head.
"It was a particularly nasty assault on a vulnerable man. You bit him on the ear and poked him in the eye as well as striking his body with the bat."
Unemployed Bullough admitted wounding with intent, criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon.
David Ward, defending, claimed Bullough, who is separated from his partner and lives with his two teenage children, had been "a little bit too public spirited."
Later Mr Ross said: "If I had my way he'd have got 20 years. We had had a nice night out and as we pulled into the drive Bob Dylan's Simple Twist of Fate came on the CD player.
"It's one of my favourite songs so I decided to listen to it all the way through and told Janet to make a cup of tea. Then I saw the outline of a man come up the drive and peer through our window.
"I didn't have a clue who he was or what he was doing so I jumped out of the car and told him to clear off. He shouted 'turn your ****ing music off', but my music wasn't even loud".
He went back inside the house and told Janet about it. "Then we heard crashing and banging outside. I ran out and he was smashing up my Peugeot 307," he added. "Without thinking I grabbed a garden rake but he saw me, immediately swung round and hit me on the top of my head with the bat." Mr Ross had surgery to reattach part of his ear, and now needs a hearing aid. He needed nine weeks off work to recover from broken ribs.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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