Drug-crazed intruder had machete

Alan Donohoe, 25, was high on drink and cocaine when he smashed his way into the complete strangers’ semi-detached, causing £5,000 damage.

He grappled with the houseowner, wedged the machete in the kitchen door and left his blood all over the carpets, furniture and walls, Sheffield Crown Court was told.

His terrifying invasion came only six months after he had been released from a 38-month prison term after barging into another couple’s home wielding a hammer. On both occasions he claimed he was being chased by unidentified assailants but a psychiatric report said he was not mentally ill, just that he became psychotic when over-indulging in drinks and drugs.

Louise Gallagher, prosecuting, said Donohoe went to a friend’s home in Handsworth, Sheffield at 12.30am on Saturday, December 10 last year, seeking help.

He was “disturbed and erratic” and told his pal someone was “coming for him”.

He picked up a machete in the kitchen and began looking under the table before running out the back door and vaulting a six-foot garden fence to escape.

An hour later he woke up Mr and Mrs Freeman at nearby Medlock Drive and told the terrified wife: “You are going to have to let me in. They are going to get me.”

After she called the police her husband opened the front door on its chain and tried to calm Donohoe down, only for him to smash his way into their living room through the front window.

As Mr Freeman tried to shut the kitchen door, Donohoe wedged the machete in the door jamb and got into the kitchen where he took Mrs Freeman’s mobile phone and began dialling.

The Freemans ran for their lives, leaving Donohoe on all fours in the kitchen bleeding from a headwound, with the blood-stained machete on the floor next to him.

Police officers tried to Taser him with no effect but when he lost his footing and fell he was finally restrained.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Freeman said he was frightened for his own safety and his wife said: “It looked as if someone had taken a bucket of blood and thrown it around the house.”

Miss Gallagher said Mrs Freeman believed she could have been killed.

At the police station Donohoe admitted he was high on drink and cocaine and said he had become “paranoid” that somebody in a car was after him and he had armed himself with the machete to protect himself.

He had tried unsuccessfully to get in through the Freemans’ front door and then smashed the front window with his fist to allow him to get through, leaving him covered in blood.

He admitted being agitated and aggressive but did not want to harm the couple.

The court heard he was given a 38-month jail term at the same court in October, 2010 and released in June last year after serving just eight months.

He was “paranoid” and high on drugs when he went into another couple’s home wielding a hammer and assaulted two women police officers.

Just three months before this incident while drunk and on cocaine he banged a man’s head on the ground and brandished a metal bar in a back garden.

Donohoe, of Ballifield Rise, Handsworth, admitted affray, possessing an offensive weapon and criminal damage.

James Baird, defending, said he recognised abstinence from drink and drugs was the way forward.

He had no intention of harming the Freemans but accepted they must have been terrified.

Judge Alan Goldsack said he would like to have given Donohoe a longer sentence but the charges did not allow him to do so.

Donohoe was jailed for a total of four years and eight months.