A MAN armed himself with a hammer and launched a “revenge attack” on a convicted sex offender in a town centre car park.

Prosecutor James Hartson told Swansea Crown Court that the victim had been walking through Haverfordwest town centre on Sunday, August 25. He entered the Aldi car park at just after 4pm, when he was assaulted by three men.

He turned around, and identified one of the attackers at Joshua Lea.

Mr Hartson said the victim was hit “some 20 times to his head and twice to his face”. He knelt to try to protect himself, but Lea produced a hammer from his sock and hit him with it.

The police were called and the victim was taken to the A&E department at Withybush Hospital, however he then discharged himself.

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The defendant was later arrested outside an address on Fleming Crescent. Lea made comments to the police indicating the victim was targeted as he was a registered sex offender, adding: “I smashed a nonce”.

Mr Hartson said this was “somewhat ironic” given Lea was a twice-cautioned sex offender.

Despite these comments, Lea denied the offence in interview, claiming instead that he “b**** slapped” the victim after he came at him. He accepted having the hammer on him, but denied having used it.

“The motivation of this assault is clearly revenge,” said Mr Hartson.

Lea later admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon.

The 21-year-old, of no fixed abode, had 12 previous convictions for 27 offences, including seven for violence. The court heard that he was subject to a community order at the time of the offence.

“He’s a young man who has had a very difficult upbringing,” said Stuart John, in mitigation.

“He’s had little moral guidance throughout his adolescence.”

Mr John added that Lea was “extremely immature”, and that his previous community orders had not been effective “due to lack of capacity rather than application”.

Judge Geraint Walters told Lea that he could have been facing eight years in prison if the victim had been seriously injured, and life with a minimum of 26 years if he had killed him.

“If that isn’t a wake-up call to young people who take weapons to the streets, I don’t know what is,” he said. “We have an epidemic of young people taking weapons out on to the streets.

“The courts over the years have given you one community order after another. And they have achieved absolutely nothing.

“You yourself have recognised that this is an opportunity for yourself to change.

“For once, you are getting some structured intervention in the prison which you were not getting in the community.”

Judge Walters sentenced Lea to 12 months for the attack. He revoked the community order that Lea had been subject to, and sentenced him to an additional three months.

The victim was granted a five-year restraining order against him.