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03
Feb
Man jailed after 'wholly terrible' attack at Knaresborough pub
A man attacked a martial artist with a steak knife and broken wine glass during a “wholly terrible” act of violence at a packed Knaresborough gastro pub.
Punters and diners at Carriages pub and restaurant looked on in horror as Kevin Aldridge, 60, flew into a rage after learning that his wife was having an affair, York Crown Court heard.
The victim - who had nothing to do with Aldridge’s marital woes and just happened to be a martial-arts expert - swung into action after “glancing to his right” and seeing Aldrige punch a man “several times” in the dining area of the High Street pub.
He ran over and restrained the defendant, but once he released him, thinking he had “calmed down”, Aldrige set upon a woman who fell to the floor and was injured after he “punched her at least once”, said prosecutor Timothy Jacobs.
This forced the martial-arts man to hold Aldridge back again and take him to ground. As he restrained him, Aldridge grabbed hold of a wine glass, smashed it and tried to strike him “in the face, head and neck” with the weapon, but mercifully “it didn’t make contact”.
Aldridge, a father-of-two, let go of the glass but then grabbed a “table knife”, thought to be a steak knife, and tried to stab the named victim in the stomach and leg.
Mr Jacobs added:
But (the victim) kept hold of him and was able to restrain him, and somebody else removed the knife (from Aldridge).
(The victim) was trained in martial arts which enabled him to avoid injury.
At one stage, as Aldridge stood up after being restrained, he upturned a dining table, causing “a lot of items on that table to spill onto the floor”.
The victim later told police that it was only because he had a “firm grip” of Aldridge that he had prevented him from causing serious, potentially “life-threatening”, injuries.
York Crown Court.
Aldridge - then of Thurnscoe, Rotherham, but now of Darfield, Barnsley - was later arrested and charged with affray and two counts of having an offensive weapon, namely the table knife and broken wine vessel. He admitted affray but denied the weapon charges.
The prosecution ultimately accepted his not-guilty pleas to the weapon charges as it was all part and parcel of the affray. He appeared for sentence on Friday, January 31.
Mr Jacobs said that Aldridge, his then wife and the victim were among a large group of people on an annual trip from Rotherham to Knaresborough in December 2022. However, Aldridge and the victim didn’t know each other.
It was early in the evening on December 3 when the victim noticed a “disturbance” in the restaurant area and went to intervene. The kitchen porter came out to assist after he heard shouts that someone had a knife and saw “two males on the floor, one having a knife and shouting threats”.
Following the attack, the victim gave police a description of Aldridge who was arrested at a pub where the travelling contingent were due to be getting a lift back to Rotherham.
Mr Jacobs added:
It appears that Mr Aldridge was triggered by the discovery that his wife was having an affair with another man who was also present that evening.
A few weeks after his arrest for the incident in Knaresborough, Aldridge was arrested again for another affray, again related to his marital issues and for which he received a community order in August 2023.
‘Wholly terrible’
Defence barrister Kelly Clarke said that Aldridge’s “wholly terrible” attack in Knaresborough had been occasioned by his learning of the “devastating” news that his wife had been having an affair which came as a “devastating blow”.
She said that Aldridge and his wife had been together for 40 years and until that day in Knaresborough, “as far as Mr Aldridge was concerned, they were happily married”.
Judge Sean Morris told Aldridge:
To see somebody like you in my court is a tragedy. You have been a thoroughly decent man in your life, but this is a serious offence. Everybody else in that pub would have been horrified.
The judge said that although Aldridge was otherwise of “exemplary good character”, it was “impossible” that he should walk free from court when he had had “tried to glass somebody and then you tried to stab him”.
Aldridge was given a seven-month jail sentence but will only serve half of that behind bars before being released on prison licence.
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