Terrifying moment farmer’s baseball bat-wielding son smashes his father’s bungalow and threatens police officer with the weapon as row over family business turns violent

• Paul Squires, 57, of Trefenter, near Aberystwyth, smashed up his father’s house
• He was jailed 22 months for the angry attack on May 4, which injured his brother

This is the terrifying moment an enraged farmer smashed up his elderly father’s bungalow with a baseball bat after an angry dispute over the future of their family business turned violent.

Shocking footage showed Paul Squires, 57, as he shattered 22 panes of glass at the house and vandalised several vehicles, as well as assaulting his brother and a police officer.

Swansea Crown Court heard the total value of the damage caused to his father’s home came to £33,400.

The court was told Squires was convinced that his father and younger brother were trying to cut him out of the family business following the death of mother earlier this year. 

His barrister told the court the defendant is ashamed of what he did. Squires held his head in his hands throughout the hour-long hearing as he was jailed for 22 months.

Paul Squires, 57, of Trenfenter, near Aberystwyth, west Wales, has been jailed for 22 months for the attack on May 4, in which he smashed 22 panes of glass at his father’s bungalow using a baseball bat

Dean Pullin, prosecuting, said on May 4 this year police received a call from the family farm in Trefenter near Aberystwyth, west Wales, reporting threats that had been made by Squires. 

He said Squires had issued the threats against his father and brother in a phone call to the cattle feed supply firm in Northamptonshire that the family used – during the call he said he was going to ‘slash everybody’ and said ‘there will be two people who will be in the undertakers or hospital his evening’. 

He then threatened that he would go to the supply firm and ‘do the same to you’. 

The firm passed on Squire’s threatening message to his younger brother, 52, who is the boss of the firm. Concerned for their 86-year-old father, Squires brother alerted him about the threats. Mr Squires senior then called the police.

The court heard that a police constable was sent to the farm and was talking to the father and brother in the conservatory, when a black Range Rover suddenly pulled up in the yard and Squires stormed in wielding a baseball bat .

The prosecutor said there were ‘tensions’ about the family farm following the death of the defendant’s mother in March, and he said it seemed the 57-year-old defendant believed his father and brother were trying to cut him out of the business and get him off the land.

An angry Paul Squires smashed 22 panes of glass at the property and attacked a number of vehicles as well as assaulting his brother and a police officer

The court heard that once inside the conservatory, Squires started swinging the baseball bat around and smashing the windows, and he issued a series of lurid threats and insults including shouting ‘the day you die I’m going to dance in your ashes’. 

The PC tried to calm Squires – to which the defendant replied: ‘I am calm – you haven’t see me when I’m in a ******* bad mood yet’.

He continued to smash the windows. He then struck his brother on the arm with the bat.

As the incident escalated, Squires shouted a series of claims about his father and brother before he left the conservatory and wandered around the outside of the house, smashing windows and damaging vehicles parked in the yard. 

The constable moved Squires’ father and brother to a room in the bungalow and told them to lock the door. 

The court heard Squires returned to the conservatory and continued issuing threats while the officer radioed for backup.

By the time further police units arrived on the scene the defendant – who has a separate farmhouse on adjacent land – had left. He was arrested that evening and a baseball bat was recovered from a shed at this property. 

Footage captured Squires as he went on a rampage at his father’s home, smashing windows and cars with his baseball bat

The court heard that in his subsequent interview he set out the ‘grievances he had about his father and brother’ and how he believed they were conspiring behind his back to thrown him off the land. He said he had gone to the bungalow after a ‘red mist’ had come down.

In an impact statement which was read to the court, the defendant’s father said the incident had exacerbated his feelings of grief and anxiety and worsened the symptoms of his Parkinson’s.

He said the experience had destroyed his relationship with his son and added that, although it was hard to say, ‘I don’t ever want to see him’.

The court heard the officer who confronted Squires in the conservatory suffered a cut to his arm caused by flying glass from the smashed windows, while the defendant’s brother suffered a graze to his arm after being hit with the bat. 

In total Squires damaged 22 windows at the bungalow, and the total cost of repairs to the building was put at £33,400.

Paul Squires, of Trefenter, near Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, west Wales, had previously pleaded guilty to sending a threatening communication, affray, common assault, assaulting a police officer, and criminal damage when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. 

He has a number of previous offences for motoring matters but none for violence.

Paul Squires held his head in hands throughout the hearing at Swansea crown Court (pictured), where he was jailed for 22 months

Ian Ibrahim, for Squires, said the incident was not borne of hatred or committed under the influence of drink or drug but came from bereavement and what the defendant considered to be ‘a form of betrayal’. 

He said the defendant had been working 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week on the family sheep and cattle farm and since the death of his mother and had turned the business’ finances around. 

He said matters had ‘reached boiling point’ on the day in question and the defendant behaved in a wholly inappropriate way and acted out of character, and he said Squires was ashamed of what he did, and wished to apologise to all those involved.

Recorder Neil Owen-Casey said the context of the situation was clearly a ‘dispute over the family business’ but that those issues were not for the court to judge. 

He said it was clear from everything he had read about Squires that he was a hard-working man who had been trying to turn the business around but he said he had carried out a ‘vicious, nasty assault’ and a ‘spree of violence’ which must have been terrifying for those involved.

With one-third discounts for guilty pleas to sending a threatening communication, affray, common assault, and criminal damage, and a one-quarter discount for assaulting a police officer – a plea entered at a later date – Squires was sentenced to a total of 22 months in prison. 

The defendant will spend up to half that sentence in custody before being released on licence to spent the remainder in the community.

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