Nine Years For Assault

Liam Andrew Coaker, 32, a bricklayer of St Leonard’s Park, East Grinstead was sentenced at Lewes Crown Court on Monday 23 March to a total of nine years and eight months in prison, having pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to two counts of grievous bodily harm.

The first six years and eight months are to be spent in prison custody, and the remaining three years will be spent on prison release licence.

Early on the morning of 27 July last year Coaker attacked a 27-year old man and a 28-year old woman who was Coaker’s ex-partner, with a golf club atfter entering her family’s house in King Georges Avenue, East Grinstead, and found them in bed together.

He beat the man round the head with the golf club, and when the head of the club broke off he continued to stab at them with the sharp end of the remaining club shaft.

Both sustained serious injuries, and the attack was only stopped when other family members came to the rescue. The man had to be airlifted to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton for treatment.

Detective Constable Stuart MacPherson said;

Police enquiries began and Coaker was swiftly traced and arrested. This was a most brutal and sustained attack and but for the intervention of family members the injuries could have been even worse.Although both victims have made recoveries they will have scarring injuries for life.

The court heard of previous violent assaults carried out by Coaker on other people, and the sentence today reflects the seriousness which with Judge Richard Hayward viewed his offending.”