A Mid Wales farmer who beat up an 83-year-old stroke victim who has since died, has been given eight months in prison, suspended for two years.
Gareth Meredith’s family had been in a 60-year-long feud with his neighbours Cyril Davies’s family over sheep grazing on common land.
The 45-year-old of The Fron Farm, Llanbadarn Fynydd, was told by crown court Judge David Wynn Morgan last Friday that he has a “very inflammatory temper that tends to go off at times of stress”.
He said it was time for Meredith to face a prison sentence so that “the wider community will understand that victims of this age are not to be treated with such contempt.”
Meredith had admitted assaulting Cyril Davies on September 16 last year, during a previous appearance at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court sitting at Cardiff. At the court on Friday, he was given the suspended prison sentence and told that he would have to be supervised for 18 months and complete 150 hours of unpaid work during the next year.
Judge Morgan was told that Mr Davies had died at the end of June, and the Crown Prosecution Service had been investigating whether there was a causal link between the assault and Mr Davies’s death.
But prosecutor Elizabeth Pearson said there no causal link was shown although members of Mr Davies’ family had said he had never been the same again after the attack.
Mrs Pearson told the court that Mr Davies had been helping out at his son’s farm. He was about to leave and got into his Land Rover when he noticed his son’s sheep, which share common land with Meredith’s flock, were disturbed.
He drove up to the site to see what was happening and his daughter Penny spotted his vehicle and saw Meredith on his quad bike nearby.
Because of previous problems between the families, she told another family member Nicholas and he watched through his binoculars.
Mr Davies’s grandson Geraint then went up to where his grandfather’s Land Rover had stopped and he found him on his hands and knees with his face covered in blood.
Geraint chased after Meredith but failed to catch him. Mr Davies’s doctor was called and he was found to have swelling and bruising to his left eye, bruising to the floor of his mouth and a haemorrhaging eye.
He was referred to the Accident and Emergency unit where his injuries were looked at and were described as a serious incident.
Mrs Pearson said just a month afterwards on October 10, Mr Davies had to be re-submitted to hospital after suffering a stroke.
He became unable to walk and remained in hospital until December when he returned home but doctors said he was unlikely to return to his former state.