Ah, One Of Those Sort Of Funerals…

Lee Flannery, 38, and his companion were so rowdy after five hours’ drinking in the Marcia Grey pub in Acomb its management asked them to keep the noise down, said Adam Mugleston, prosecuting.

Flannery responded by grabbing landlady Amanda Savage by her clothing and “flung her around like a rag doll across the floor.”

His companion knocked pub manager Neil Patterson to the floor and both he and Flannery punched him. Flannery was removed from the Front Street pub, but came back in.

The manager fled behind the bar for his own safety, but Flannery punched landlord Kevin Savage several times until he fell to the ground.

He also knocked an 80 year old lady to the ground in the fracas, though she wasn’t hurt.

So…that’s an automatic spell in chokey?

Flannery, of Hare Park Close, Liversedge, West Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to affray, causing actual bodily harm to the landlord and assaulting the landlady and the pub manager.

He was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years on condition he observes a six-month nightly curfew between 9pm and 6am and does 30 days’ rehabilitative activities. He must also pay compensation to the two assault victims and pay £100 costs and a £100 statutory surcharge.

Recorder James Baird said he pleaded guilty on the basis that he may have been acting at one point in self-defence.

*speechless*

Flannery’s barrister Kate Bisset said he had returned to York, where he used to live, for the funeral of his grandfather. He had been very close to the deceased and had been drinking all day.

Although he had previous convictions for violence and had served a four-year sentence for two offences of cruelty to a child, he had not been in trouble since 2005.

Oh. Well, that’s OK then. I guess…