Pub-goer convicted of manslaughter after attacking man outside Leicestershire inn
Nathan Gothard, 37, has been found guilty of manslaughter after the attack on a grandfather outside a Leicestershire village pub.
Last updated 8 hours ago
A pub-goer who fatally punched a 66-year-old grandfather after losing a fight outside a bar has been found guilty of manslaughter.
Jurors at Leicester Crown Court heard that Nathan Gothard, 37, knocked David Darke to the ground near the Crown Inn in Appleby Magna, Leicestershire, days before Christmas last year, causing his skull to crack.
Gothard denied murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, but was convicted by jurors on Thursday of the less serious offence after around two and a half hours of deliberations.
He was unanimously cleared of murder.
He stood in the dock with his head bowed after the guilty verdict was returned, while members of Mr Darke’s family sitting in the public gallery said “yes” before wiping their tears.
Prosecutors said the atmosphere in the Crown Inn on the evening of December 21 was “menacing, threatening, argumentative and disputing” because of Gothard’s behaviour.
He had made “unwelcome advances and remarks” towards women in a group with Mr Darke, who had been at their staff Christmas party, and made it clear “it was his terrain – they were in his pub”, jurors were told.
After being escorted from the pub by the landlady and her partner, Gothard got into a fight with a man called Ty Fern, who he had been “riling and niggling” in the bar.
Gothard was knocked to the ground and kicked before Mr Darke helped him to his feet, prosecutor Peter Joyce KC said.
Mr Joyce had told jurors in his opening speech: “The defendant, in his rage, after losing the fight he had picked, attacked Mr Darke to save his own face.”
Gothard told the court he was in fear of Mr Darke, who he claimed “threatened to bury me and put me in the ground”.
He said Mr Darke was not helping him to his feet, but grabbed him “violently”.
Gothard told jurors: “I have lashed out and hit him because I thought I was going to be attacked again. I threw a single punch. A pre-emptive strike to stop being assaulted again.”
Judge William Harbage KC told the defendant he can expect to be handed a “significant custodial sentence”.
Gothard, of Church Street, Appleby Magna, will be sentenced on 22 May.