Mark Cordell who took bat to Old Bookbinders pub in a rage to pay back £5,900

Mark Cordell, of Canal Street, Oxford, appeared at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Friday to be sentenced for causing thousands of pounds worth of damage to the Old Bookbinders in Jericho.

The 55-year old took a baseball bat and smashed all of the Victor Street pub’s ground floor windows at about 1.30am on Boxing Day.

Landlord Josh Mullett-Sadones said that all of the 24 window panes had been shattered.

At an earlier hearing at Oxford Crown Court it was revealed that as a result of the bat attack the pub had suffered about £15,000 in losses.

Those losses were tallied as £5,900 of damage caused directly from the smashed windows, with a further £5,000 resulting from the pub’s three-day closure.

A further £4,000 was claimed as a result from a dip in trade.

Cordell’s defence barrister Kellie Enever blamed the incident on her client’s alcoholism and urged the court back in February to consider a non custodial sentence to address it.

Agreeing to defer the case Recorder Rhona Campbell called the incident a ‘vindictive and unpleasant attack’ but said that she would give Cordell a chance to prove himself to avoid an immediate jail term.

As part of that deferred sentence he was told to find £5,900 for compensation to the pub landlord and to undertake ‘practical reflection, investigation and engagement’ to tackle his alcoholism.

Four months after he was given that chance he appeared again for his final sentencing hearing last week.

Rhona Campbell - who is now a court Judge after being appointed in March - ordered that Cordell be made subject to an eight-month jail term, suspended for 12 months.

He must also pay the £5,900 which was ordered as compensation to be paid by July 9 and he was given a two-month curfew.