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BBC presenter jailed for hitting youth with pole
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- Created on Friday, 08 January 2010 00:00
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BBC presenter jailed for hitting youth with pole
Ashley Blake, who worked for Midlands Today, gets two years for unlawful wounding of 17-year-old at pub.
A BBC presenter who hit a teenage boy in the face with a wooden pole was jailed for two years today.Ashley Blake, who worked for Midlands Today, was convicted last month of unlawful wounding after an incident at the pub he owned in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, in January.
Jurors at Birmingham crown court heard that Blake took a patio umbrella pole from behind the bar and swung it above his head, striking 17-year-old Greg Jones in the face.
Jones, who had been attending a birthday party, suffered injuries to his lip and chin. He had been trying to act as a peacemaker after a customer, Steven Sproule, punched another youth unconscious, the court heard.
Sproule, 38, of Birmingham, admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm and was jailed for 13 months. He had been serving a suspended sentence for driving offences at the time of the incident.
Blake, 40, was also found guilty of intending to pervert the course of justice after throwing the pole into a neighbouring garden centre in an attempt to conceal it from police.
The court heard that Blake had a string of previous convictions dating back to the 1980s and 1990s for theft, handling stolen goods and driving while disqualified. He was sacked by the BBC two weeks after his conviction on 3 August.
His barrister, Nigel Rumfitt QC, said Blake had already been punished. Blake had been "an extremely successful man" but had "panicked" and became a "ruined" one, he said.
"In a few moments he threw all that away. He overreacted to a violent situation that was not his making. He was going places. His career is in tatters," Rumfitt said.
The judge, Peter Carr, told the defendants: "This was a serious episode of public violence. What each of you did was so serious that an immediate custodial sentence cannot be avoided."
