A drug addict whose sickening attack on a 4ft 6in pensioner caused outrage around the world has been jailed for four years after admitting trying to mug his visually-impaired victim.
Well-wishers who were moved by the plight of 67-year-old Alan Barnes raised £330,000 for him within days of Richard Gatiss’s cowardly assault.
The 25-year-old pushed Mr Barnes over as he put out the bins, breaking his collar bone. Gatiss was desperate for money to buy so-called legal highs when he tried to mug him.
He was jailed at Newcastle Crown Court after previously admitting assault with intent to rob.
Judge Paul Sloan QC said: “I have no doubt he was picked on by you because ofhis vulnerability. It was on any view a despicable offence.”
Gatiss, from Split Crow Road, Gateshead, was caught after police retrieved DNA evidence from the pocket on Mr Barnes’s jacket.
He had run off empty handed from the mugging when Mr Barnes shouted for help.
While on remand, Gatiss was kept in segregation for his own safety due to the strong feelings his attack caused even among convicted criminals.
Mr Barnes, who was too scared to move back to his home in Low Fell, Gateshead, after the mugging, will buy a new house with the money raised online.
The fund was set up by local beautician Katie Cutler, 21, who initially hoped to raise £500, enough to buy new carpets or curtains.
But the appeal went viral and his family called a halt when the total reached £330,000. Many donors also left messages expressing their disgust that such a vulnerable man could be attacked.
Mr Barnes’s disabilities were caused when his mother contracted German measles during pregnancy.
He and Ms Cutler plan to use their new high profile to launch a foundation with the aim of raising £1 million for good causes.
Gatiss, who has a tattooed neck, with hair curly on top and short at the sides,did not visibly react when he was sentenced. He had wept during previous courthearings.
Nick Dry, prosecuting, said Mr Barnes’s disabilities led medics to believe his life expectancy was just nine years when he was born, but despite those problems, which meant he was unable to work, he was intelligent and had lived independently.
For more than six years he had lived in a housing complex for elderly and disabled people in a cul-de-sac.
Gatiss had failed to withdraw £10 from a cashpoint when he spotted Mr Barnes outside his bungalow on the evening of January 25.
Mr Barnes said he was aware of a shape coming towards him in the darkness and heard a man demand money.
Gatiss pushed the top of the frail pensioner’s head, forcing him to the floor, and rummaged through his pockets, Mr Dry said.
The broken collar bone stopped him washing or eating by himself.
Mr Dry said: “These restrictions he found extremely frustrating, impacting as they did on his fierce independence.”
The bone has since healed well, the court heard.
After he was arrested, Gatiss denied being involved saying he had been brought up better than that, then claimed a knifeman made him do it.
When he was challenged, he confessed and Mr Dry said: “He said he wanted money to buy legal highs to which he had become addicted, then breaking down, he was distressed at what he had done.”
In a victim statement read in court, Mr Barnes said in the aftermath of theattack he felt he could no longer stay in the community where he had lived allhis life.
Since then he has decided to move to a house in the same area – “something made possible by the overwhelming support and generosity of people in the local area and indeed around the world”, the prosecuting barrister said.
Mr Dry added: “Although he is still wary of going out, he is positive about the future and over the worst of the injury.”
Jamie Adams, defending, said it was “an awful case” but publicity surrounding it made it difficult to “keep a proper outlook on what the sentence should be”.
Gatiss was appalled by his behaviour, and his initial denials to police were due to his inability to accept what he had done.
Referring to his drug addiction, he told the interviewing detective: “I’m not a nasty person, it was bad but I’m sorting it out. You cannot just come off it like that or you will cut yourself.”
Mr Adams said: “He is making reference to those awful drugs, so-called legal highs, he had become addicted to over the past years.”
Gatiss had recently been diagnosed with epilepsy and his medication when mixed with legal highs would have a “deleterious effect”, the barrister said.
When he finally accepted he was responsible for the mugging, Gatiss was remorseful, as acknowledged by the interviewing officer.
Even on the prison bus to court, Gatiss had been “the subject of some pretty awful double-standard behaviour” from other inmates, Mr Adams said.
“Life is not easy for him. He is going to be in the public glare for a long time to come and he knows that. There is a lot for him to deal with.”
Judge Sloan, sentencing, said Gatiss picked his six-stone victim deliberately. “The fact that he was disabled and vulnerable would have been obvious to you,” he said.
The judge hoped the public support Mr Barnes has received “has gone a long way to restore his faith in human nature”.
After the sentencing, Mr Barnes said he thought it was the right length of timeand he hoped Gatiss would “do some thinking” while he was in prison.
“I’m pleased he’s been sentenced and I think the sentence of four years is just about the right length,” he said.
“I hope while he’s in prison he’ll do some thinking and when he comes out he’ll do something useful. Maybe he might decide to help people, which I think would be a good idea for him.
“It’s sad that he was brought to the stage of doing something like this – not necessarily just me, it could have been anybody and they might not have got over the incident.
“But I’ve moved on, I’m doing something else now, I’m working as an ambassador for the Katie Cutler Foundation, and we’re hoping that the public will support us and we’re also asking businesses to donate to the foundation so we can help a lot more people.”
He confirmed his injuries had almost fully healed and he had found a house in Low Fell, Gateshead, that he wanted to buy with the money that had been raised.
“My injuries have just about 100% recovered. It was my collar bone that was broken, it was a fracture and it’s just about healed now, I can lift with that hand now,” he said.
“I’ve found a two-bed terraced house, with a living room and a kitchen. I didn’t want too big a house, just somewhere small for a base to work from because I can’t stay with my sister forever.”