Let-off for ‘Farmer Thug’
A farmer who broke a clubber’s nose at a Cuban-themed nightclub then walked off sipping his G&T has walked free after a judge said he had ‘learnt a lesson’.
Mitchel Britten, 24, drank half a gallon of beer watching an England v New Zealand test match at Lord’s before going on the Embargo Republica club in Chelsea’s Kings Road.
Britten, who helps run a farm which sells eggs to M&S and The Happy Egg Co, was on the dance floor with Neil Brotherston when he suddenly attacked his fellow clubber.
Mr Brotherston suffered a broken nose which required surgery and he spent two days in hospital recovering after the attack on May 25, 2015.
Britten claimed he ‘had to push Mr Brotherson with my head into his nose to get some personal space’.
The farmer explained he could not use his hands to push him away because he was holding his G&T at the time.
Britten was given a community order after Judge Nicholas Wood admitted the usual starting point for a headbutt causing actual bodily harm is jail.
Wearing a brown jacket, beige trousers and a striped club tie Britten was greeted by his sobbing family as he walked free from Isleworth Crown Court.
The judge said the offence was completely ‘out of character’ for the ‘hard working’ sheep farmer and ordered him to pay Mr Brotherston £500 compensation.
He also told Britten he didn’t have to pay £3,500 costs to the CPS.
Britten was found guilty of causing actual bodily harm after a two day trial last November.
The farmer said he had ‘anything between three and five beers, with food’ at the match as England bowled out New Zealand to win the Test on the fifth day.
Britten and his friends then went to Pizza Express, where they shared a bottle of wine, before going back to a Chelsea apartment they rented for the weekend to change for a night out.
Britten said he wasn’t drunk but was in a ‘merry sort of state’.
He admitted to headbuttting Mr Brotherston.
The probation service had allowed Britten to stay at home on the farm and not make the trip to London for an interview, the court heard.
Stephen Spence, defending, said: ‘He is a farmer working for the family farm and has recently set up his own business dealing in sheep.
‘In what I think it must have been a first for the probation service at Isleworth the telephone conversation had to be suspended for a period while he delivered a lamb.
‘That may be unusual for Isleworth but not for Norfolk.’
Mr Spence said Britten’s ‘growing’ business had made £5,000 profit this year.
Britten and long-term girlfriend Elizabeth Barber run a pedigree Charollais sheep flock alongside the farm’s commercial flock of Lleyns sheep in the sprawling Norfolk countryside.
The Barber family have been running the farm since the 1970s, when Elizabeth and sister Annabel’s grandfather took up the tenancy in 1973.
Their parents Julie and David then purchased the land, and now sell their hand selected eggs to a range of premier clientele, including Noble foods, M&S and The Happy Egg Co.
Judge Wood said he had read Britten’s ‘outstanding’ character references.
He told the farmer: ‘I am going to deal with you by way of a community order, there will be no prison sentence, suspended or not.
‘Some might see this as generous but I do not think so when someone looks at the whole case.’
‘The remorse is long and genuine.’
The court heard Britten had no previous relevant convictions.
‘You are a young man, he character references show that you are willing to go to a great deal of time, trouble and care for people that are not immediate relatives,’ said the judge.
‘This has caused you and your family a huge amount of stress.’
The court did not hear how much stress it had caused Mr Brotherston as he did not give a victim impact statement.
Judge Wood continued: ‘For a headbutt by anybody no matter their age or position the court starts with immediate custody but it seems to me from the references I have read, what I have heard and what I have seen of you during the trial it is clear the community threshold is passed.
He said the risk of Britten reoffending was ‘minimal’.
He went on: ‘I think you have learnt a lesson by having a few days in the crown court.’
‘You will pay £500 compensation to Neil Brotherston.
‘I impose a one year community order, there will be one requirement of unpaid work and this will be of a very low amount as I bear in mind the long hours you work.
‘It will be 80 hours of community work.’
He warned Britten that he must comply with the order and if he reoffends in the next year he could be resentenced.
‘So in a way it is a slight, a sort of, suspended sentence.’
‘I hope and suspect this will be the last time you trouble the criminal courts.’
Britten, of Cavick House Farm, Wymondham, Norfolk, denied but was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
He was sentenced to a community order to undertake 80 hours of unpaid work within a year and ordered to pay £500 compensation.
Judge Wood told Britten he didn’t need to pay anything towards the £3,500 costs of the trial.
