The brother of a pensioner who was battered and left with a bleed on the brain by a teenager has slammed the ‘crazy’ decision to ban him from court in case it upset his attacker.
David Quigley, 69, died weeks later after the 15-year-old ‘teenage tearaway’ allegedly attacked him with his own walking stick.
The pensioner had confronted the teenager, who is now aged 16, after finding him on his garden shed in Birkenhead, Merseyside.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm without intent but walked free from Liverpool Youth Court after being given a 12-month youth referral order.
Mr Quigley’s brother Thomas was barred from court after magistrates ruled that his presence would ‘put the defendant under undue stress’ and his ‘welfare being paramount’.
Thomas told DailyMail: ‘I was in witness care waiting to go in. When I was waiting to go in, I was told an objection had been launched by the defence not to allow me in as it would upset the lad. It’s a crazy decision – it’s an affront to justice.’
Fighting back tears, he said: ‘I had been expecting to go in and was shocked when I wasn’t allowed in because it might upset the lad.
‘I don’t think justice has been done. I am very upset.’
The court heard that Mr Quigley had been inside his Wirral home when he ‘heard a noise in his back garden’ and went to investigate.Mr Quigley, who used a walking stick to ‘assist with his mobility’, found the teenager on the roof of his shed.
Prosecutor Nick Cockrell said the boy had been ‘drinking and making a nuisance of himself’ earlier in the evening and had been ‘hopping from one garden to the next’ in the area.
He jumped down from the shed after being ‘challenged’ by the homeowner, who asked him: ‘Who the hell are you?’
Mr Quigley received no response, at which he ‘took a swing at him’ then ‘attempted to retreat to the safety of his house’ – leaving behind his cane.
The court heard that the teen followed him and there was a ‘physical altercation between the two’ by the back door and the pensioner was left on the floor unconscious.
His next door neighbour had been alert by ‘banging and shouting’ and saw the boy holding part of the broken walking stick, the court heard.
Mr Quigley died three weeks after the assault in October last year and the teenager was originally charged with murder.
The teen served 123 days on remand in custody in a secure unit in Salford, Gtr Manchester, while awaiting trial charged with murder, followed by 140 days on an electronically-monitored curfew after being bailed.
The murder charge was later dropped.Wearing a navy blue suit, he was allowed to sit in the body of the court alongside his mother today rather than being seated in the dock.
A statement was read out to the court on behalf of Thomas Quigley after the decision to ban him from the court.
It read: ‘Your attack on my brother changed many lives forever.
‘Having denied the assault for nearly eight months, you finally owned up to it. I would like to think that is because you have found your conscious, but I would be naïve to believe that.
‘My big brother was loveable, kind and caring, a character, a gentleman and a one-off. David’s philosophy was if you had enough for yourself, you shared your good fortune with others – he always told me he had a lot to be grateful for.’
