A thug who beat a neighbour with a metal truncheon and stabbed him in the shoulder in a row over SNOW outside their homes has been jailed for seven years.
Peter Wilkins, 27, had spent an hour clearing the snow when Lee Edwards arrived on a quad bike with his young daughter on the front.
Peter accused him of churning up the snow and angrily confronted him with a shovel and shouted and swore at him.
Dad-of-two Edwards, 34, stormed off, leaving Peter’s drive in a mess outside his home in Maidstone, Kent.
But after drinking he returned later that night, armed with the truncheon and a knife, seeking violent revenge.
Edwards accused Peter of swearing in front of his daughter and then set about him as he got out of his car.
Defenceless Peter was beaten to the ground as he was struck across his hand, arm and collar bone with the metal bar.
Edwards then revealed a knife in his gloved hand and stabbed him in the shoulder.
Peter told Maidstone Crown Court: “I hopped out the car and grabbed hold of him by his wrists.
“I tried to restrain him with his arms up in the air. I bit one of his fingers.
“There was a lot of struggling and I was in panic mode.
“I remember shouting: ‘Why are you trying to stab me?’ He said something about frightening or upsetting his daughter.”
Edwards eventually ran off when Peter’s parents came out of his house.
He added: “My mum was in panic mode and couldn’t believe what had happened.
“I turned to shut the door and she noticed there was blood all over my heavy fleece jacket.”
John Fitzgerald, defending, said Edwards had been driving the quad when he was confronted in the street by an angry man wielding a shovel.
He said the victim told Edwards: “You should not be on the road. You have got your daughter on the front with no crash helmet.
“Why don’t you go to your own neck of the woods?”
Mr. Fitzgerald said: “His daughter leapt from the quad bike and ran off very frightened.
“When he got home, he was still shaking. He stewed on that for the day, I am afraid.
“He is not a heavy drinker, but he was drinking. He left the house a man who had seen his little girl terrified. He went to have it out with that person he blamed for that.
“There were a few swipes with the knife and a few strikes with the truncheon.”
Edwards was convicted by a jury and Recorder Andrew Moran QC said it was “a horrendous, if isolated incident” fuelled by alcohol.
He said: “It seems to be an aberration fuelled in part by consuming alcohol. There is a degree of remorse.”
