Angry husband in hammer threat to wife

Steven Taylor claimed he was told what to do and not to do all the time by his wife and was not allowed out unless she said so.

He ended-up holding a lump hammer over the head of his wife, who was training to be a social worker, telling her: “Call the police or I’ll smash you.”

Taylor, aged 58, of Sandicroft Road, North Shore, pleaded guilty to assault.

Presiding magistrate, Mark Cottriall, told him: “Emotionally, this must have been a very, frightening incident indeed.”

Alison Quanbrough, prosecuting, said Taylor looked after the couple’s five-year-old son while his wife worked away in Carlisle during the week studying to be a social worker.

The prosecutor said: “0n April 23 Taylor was asked by his wife to tidy the kitchen as a dishwasher engineer was coming and she did not want to interrupt her studies.”

Later after drinking some dark rum Taylor started shouting and said; “I am not everyone’s slave.”

He went out and returned with a lump hammer which he held above his head and made out as though he was going to hit her.

Jessica Partington, defending, said Taylor, who had spinal problems and did not work, had a routine with his son while his wife was away, which he felt she disrupted when she returned.

Ms Partington added: “He feels he is treated like a slave. She is the one who says he must do this and do that while she works at her studies. He had no intention of using the hammer.”

The family had been on holiday to Spain and they were staying together.

Taylor was sentenced to a 12-month community order with up to 15 days’ rehabilitation supervised by the probation service, fined £50 with £85 costs and ordered to pay a £150 court charge plus £60 victims’ surcharge by Blackpool magistrates.