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- A man was arrested after cameras caught him wearing a mask and pouring weed killer on a green at a golf club where he’d been banned.
- The golfer had been kicked out of the Woolley Park Golf Club in 2020 after having “issues” with the club’s owners.
- More crime news here.
Glen Newton, 55, attempted to get revenge on a golf club that had banned him by vandalizing one of the greens in the middle of the night.
Newton had been kicked out of the Woolley Park Golf Club in Wakefield, West Yorkshire in 2020 after having “issues” with the club’s owners.
According to testimony given and video presented in Leeds Crown Court, Newton, wearing a mask, was caught both on camera as well as by groundskeeper John Rowbottom dousing the green on the third hole with liquid glyphosate – a weed killer.
When confronted while committing the act after Rowbottom spotted him on a security camera, the disgruntled golfer attempted to flee, but slipped and fell into the path of the groundskeeper’s vehicle.
From there Rowbottom chased Newton down on foot and removed his mask, all while filming everything with his phone camera.
“He had been a member with us for six or seven years, and had been okay at first, but had then started to upset other club members and staff. He was difficult and bullying,” said Woolley Park Golf Club owner Philip Rowbottom. “Newton was very annoyed with us after we didn’t let him renew his membership.
“After that the greens started to suffer a series of attacks – four in total. The first vandalism happened in February 2020, shortly before the first lockdown. We noticed damage to the green and realized it had been attacked with weed killer, which Newton must have poured on a week before because glyphosate takes that long to take effect.
“It happened twice more, once on the fourth and again on the third green – the ones closest to a main road, where you can just park up and jump over a fence,” he continued. “It was the same M.O. every time, the same pattern of damage on the green, poured out of a watering can.
“I knew who it was and reported the damage to police but, bless their cotton socks, they said they couldn’t do anything without evidence.”
Rowbottom added, “When we finally caught him the CCTV alerted us to an intruder and I could tell it was him on the cameras by the way he walked. He had a balaclava on and was carrying a watering can. It was 8.45pm and getting dark. Me and my son raced down and caught him red handed.”
Glen Newton was furious at losing his membership at Woolley Park Golf Club in Wakefield last year. https://t.co/FQpTnyb1WH
— Metro (@MetroUK) September 29, 2021
The judge in the case, Recorder Dafydd Enoch QC, told Newton after he was arrested and pleaded guilty, “I do not know what possessed you to behave in that way.
“I’m sure there’s two sides to every story, there almost always is. But the fact is you took the law into your own hands and in a completely planned and premeditated way, you decided you were going to seriously damage these people’s green.
“You obtained the equipment and you disguised yourself. You caused great distress to the person who faced you. The result is that you did what you set out to do, which was to cause serious damage.”
Newton, who denied being the perpetrator of the earlier damage done to the other greens, was ordered to pay the Woolley Park Golf Club £10,000 ($13,467) and was given three-month jail term, suspended for 12 months.
Newton’s wife Allyson commented, “We’ve been through a lot and the truth is our side of the story, which is completely different.”