A DEMOLITION man has been given a community service order after he threatened the man he believed to be his wife’s lover with a three-foot crow bar.
Sumon D Costa (26) admitted committing affray and possessing an offensive weapon.
On 8 June last year, D Costa went to the victim’s home and the two went outside to speak in D Costa’s car, Crown Advocate Luke Sette said.
D Costa was said to have accused the man of having an affair with his wife and shouting “I will kill you, I will kill you, you don’t know who I am”.
The court heard he then went to the boot of his car to get a crow bar, which he kept there for work, as he worked for a demolition company.
The victim, Crown Advocate Sette said, “dodged the blow” of the crow bar and “genuinely believed that the bar would have hit him” otherwise.
D Costa was “raising the crow bar with both hands [and] looked as if he was ready to cause harm”, the court heard.
A member of the public took a video and one person eventually took the crow bar off D Costa. D Costa later asked to get the crow bar back “as he needed it for work”.
Advocate James Bell, defending, said that his client had written a letter of remorse and that the offending was out of character for him.
He said he believed the victim had been having an affair with his wife – something D Costa also told investigators.
“It was a spontaneous situation that arose and indeed, Mr D Costa very much regrets his spontaneous reaction,” he said.
Delivering the court’s sentence, Deputy Bailiff Mark Temple, presiding, said: “We commend the neighbours for de-escalating this incident so it didn’t become even more serious.”
D Costa was sentenced to 180 hours’ community for affray and 160 hours for possessing an offensive weapon, running concurrently.
Lieutenant-Bailiff Jane Ronge and Jurat Michael Entwistle were sitting.
