Farm worker beat colleague with baseball bat saying 'I'll do you in and slice your dog's throat'
A farm labourer who battered his colleague with a metal baseball bat and threatened to 'slice his dog's throat' because he refused to pay a vet's bill has been sentenced.
Aaron James Clare, who is 40, turned violent after his dog got into a fight with a dog belonging to Liam Hollinshead, and the latter refused to pay the bill for injuries.
The two were both working on a farm near Market Drayton on July 26 2022, when trouble broke out during a lunch break. Both men had their dogs with them.
At about 1.30pm Mr Hollinshead was sitting in his van eating with his dog leashed to the vehicle, and Clare was walking by the van with his own dog.
The dogs got into a fight - although the men later disputed which dog was the aggressor - and both received injuries. Clare took his dog to a nearby vet and promptly returned with the bill, which he handed to Mr Hollinshead.
When Mr Hollinshead said he believed Clare was responsible for the flashpoint between the dogs and that he would not be paying the bill, Clare became "aggressive", prosecutor Miss Sara Beddow told Telford Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
