An armed burglar who kicked his way into a victim’s home and stabbed him in front of his wife and son has been jailed for five years.
Judge Fiona Bagnall warned 30-year-old Aaron McIlhatton that “it is with some reluctance” that she was not assessing him as a dangerous offender.
The Antrim Crown Court judge emphasised that when he broke in and stabbed the victim multiple times on 14 September 2022, leaving him with “life threatening and life changing injuries,” McIlhatton was just a few days away from being sentence for a similar attack on the same victim.
On the day he was due to go on trial accused of attempted murder McIlhatton, from Haughtons Hall in Cullybackey, entered guilty pleas to the lesser offences of aggravated burglary at a house on Grove Road in Ballymena where he was armed with a knife and inflicted GBH on the victim and possessing a firearm or imitation gun with intent to cause fear of violence.
That incident came just four days before McIlhatton was handed a four and a half year sentence victim’s arising from an incident at the same victims house late at night on 6 June 2021 where he slashed his car tyres and then forced his way in, assaulting the victim in his bed, in front of wife and kids before making off.
Jailing McIlhatton, Judge Bagnall said the case before her was “remarkably similar” but was significantly more serious.
She outlined that it was around 4am on 14 September when the defendant was captured on ring doorbell footage outside the victim home pointing as handgun at the camera.
Thirty seconds after that McIlhatton, holding a 9 inchm knife in his other hand, kicked the front door in and the victim’s son shouted “he’s got a gun, he’s got a gun” as McIlhatton ran upstairs.
Having been roused from his sleep, the victim threw a plant pot at McIlhatton and while it struck him it only served to temporarily delay the attack and the 30-year-old ran back upstairs and began stabbing at the victim.
The attack, witnessed by the victim’s wife and 12-year-old son, left him covered in blood and with abdominal wounds as McIlhatton ran from the scene.
Judge Bagnall said police arrested McIlhatton at his home a short time later.
In total the victim, who watched proceedings by videolink and who at one stage during the plea and sentence had to be told to stop recording the court, spent three months in hospital but as a result of the attack, he has been left with permanent injuries and is no longer able to work.
As regards the motivation behind the aggravated burglary, Judge Bagnall said McIlhatton had told a probation officer there were stressors in his life at the time, he had been drinking too much and “ruminating” over an incident where the victim had attacked his parents 17 years previously.