A former professional footballer became enraged and threatened a neighbour with a knife through his letterbox after he was asked for a cigarette. He told his neighbour: “If you come near my door I’ll f****** stab you.”
Benjamin Savage, 47, played for Cardiff City, Wimbledon, and Southampton before injury ended his career and led him on a path to drug addiction. On August 24 last year the defendant was living at a block of flats in Cardiff when he became enraged with a neighbour who posted a note under his door asking for a cigarette.
A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court on Wednesday heard the neighbour later heard banging at his door and realised it was Savage who began waving a six-inch knife through the letterbox. The defendant shouted: “If you come near my door I’ll f****** stab you.” For the latest court reports sign up to our crime newsletter here.
Prosecutor James Evans said the victim believed this was a genuine threat and had to move his leg so it wasn’t cut by the knife. The shouting continued for a short period of time before the police were called and the defendant went back to his flat.
Savage, of Ty Nant, Whitchurch, was arrested and later pleaded guilty to affray. The court heard he has 81 previous convictions for offences including affray, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assaulting an emergency worker, common assault, and battery.
In mitigation Kirsten Murphy said her client was a professional footballer but his career came to an end in 2009 after sustaining serious injury to his legs when he fell from a church roof while working as a roofer. His legs were fitted with titanium plates and he was prescribed with opiate painkillers. The defendant later began using Class A drugs and became homeless while embarking on a criminal career. Ms Murphy said her client had turned his life around over the last four years and had found accommodation as well as beginning a methadone programme.
Sentencing, Judge Vanessa Francis said: “It must have been for your neighbour a terrifying experience… What you did was wholly irresponsible.” She sentenced Savage to eight months imprisonment and made him subject to a restraining order for three years.
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