A 70-year-old man was beaten up by a pub landlord and ex-army commando in a dispute over ‘smelly bins’. Simon Procter was left needing 20 stitches after Daniel Winward attacked him outside his home.
Simon, who has cancer, said that doctors thought he’d been in a car accident after the incident in Morecambe. The assault happened after the 70-year-old had complained to the council that Winward, 44, left bins from his pub, The Morecambe Hotel, on his street for three days.
When Mr Proctor’s wife Tarni, 56, tried to stop the assault by telling Winward her husband had cancer, the former soldier callously replied: "He's going to die anyway." Simon said after Winward had launched the "unprovoked" attack he then trashed his home, causing £1,000 worth of damage and leaving blood all over his walls, the Mirror reports.
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A court found that Winward, who has spent three tours of duty with the Commandos, was suffering from PTSD at the time, and he was given a ten-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to burglary, common assault and GBH. But Simon said there was "no excuse" for the assault and believes that the trauma may have resulted in the resurgence of his cancer in his left kidney.
He said: "I couldn't believe I got beaten up. There is no excuse for what he did. When I went to the hospital, they thought I'd been in a car accident.
"My wife said to him, 'He's a 70-year-old man with cancer'. Winward said: 'He's going to die anyway' and he threw her to the ground.
"He then started punching me again. At that time, I was receiving hormone treatment for bladder and prostate cancer. It was very upsetting to get hit and think, 'I can't get up, I can't move quickly enough'. It was horrible."
He added: "I've now got a big cancerous growth which has suddenly appeared in my left kidney. If you have a lot of trauma, then this sort of thing can flare up."
Simon said there was an ongoing dispute about bins belonging to Winward's family pub being left on Beecham Street near his three-bed terraced property. He had written to his local council after the foul-smelling refuse that had been dumped close to his home over a hot bank holiday weekend last year.
The retired engineer said on the morning of August 29, 2022, Winward had been "pacing up and down" the street before 7am, banging bins and looking for "attention". Winward had attacked him at around 8.30am when he spotted him leaving his home with his wife for a cycle ride, before punching him several times to the head.
Simon said: "I was going to go out on a push bike ride with my wife, so we were walking out. I thought, what are you going to do? And then he punched me.
"If I was 10 years younger, I could have defended myself. But I wasn't in the right state. I got hit pretty badly. I got hit quite a lot of times.
"He then came into the house, he followed me in, and pulled a mirror and a TV off the stand and threw on the floor. He maybe did about £1,000 worth of damage.
"There was quite a lot of blood on the walls - it was mine that all came off his fists."
The 70-year-old has been left with a scar behind his left eye, but Simon is more worried about his new cancer prognosis, which he believes could be linked to the assault. He said: "This last Saturday, I came back from the hospital, and they found a cancerous growth on my left kidney. So I've got to have that removed."
Simon now said he was deeply concerned about what would happen if he came across Winward in the street again. He said: "My biggest worry is we don't know if he is going to do it again. We don't know if he's going to come back."
Winward was sentenced on May 12 by a judge at Preston Crown Court after pleading guilty to burglary, common assault and GBH to a 10-month sentence, suspended for 18 months.
He was also ordered to complete a total of 30 days of rehabilitation activity requirements, 150 hours of unpaid work and pay £1,000 for the damage he caused. He was also told to pay Simon and Tarni £1,000 in compensation for the attack.
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