Baseball bat drunk terrified neighbours

Leslie Milnes was already arguing with someone from another block of flats when a couple of his neighbours arrived home to Victoria Grove, Wakefield, around 4pm on January 6.

After parking their car they went inside, but could hear shouting continuing outside.

Milnes then noticed the woman looking through her kitchen window. He called her "a slag" and threatened to punch her face in, Georgina Coade, prosecuting told Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

She went into the living room to tell her husband and they then heard banging outside. When she returned to the kitchen she saw Milnes in the square outside with a baseball bat which he was banging against a metal pole.

He shouted her car was next and he was going to kill her.

She was terrified and when her husband went in the kitchen Milnes shouted obscenities and death threats. Police were called and when they arrested Milnes they found the baseball bat lying in the snow beside him.

Milnes 47, admitted affray and was jailed for six months with a further month consecutive for failing to answer bail and appear at court last week.

Judge Kerry Macgill said it was a nasty incident. His neighbours had done nothing wrong and were "quite understandably terrified" by his behaviour.

Neil Clark, for Milnes, said he failed to attend court last week because he had gone to hospital with his wife who had stomach ulcers. "He realises he should not have given that priority."

He said Milnes had been having problems with neighbours and realised drinking too much had added to his depression but he was now facing eviction.