A RUGBY fan has been ordered to pay compensation to a neighbour who he attacked with a broom handle after blaming her incorrectly for a power cut that interrupted a TV game.

Issac Golborne was staying with his girlfriend in a caravan on the edge of Newton Abbot when the power failed as he was watching highlights of the Exeter Chief’s Premiership semi-final in 2021.

He had drunk half a bottle of rum and was slurring his speech and unsteady on his feet when he attacked a woman who was living in the only other caravan on the site at Middle Park Yard, Teigngrace.

She had also left her static home to investigate the power cut and encountered him near a gazebo where he hit her across the head with a wooden pole which she thought was a rounders bat but he said was a broom handle. She suffered an injury to her elbow as she fended off his next blow with her arm and was still suffering pain from the blow a year later when she wrote a victim impact statement.

Golborne went on to hit her at least three more times around the thighs or lower body, leaving distinctively shaped bruises. She manager to escape and call the police.

Her victim impact statement said that her injuries had led to her losing her job, having to move home, and getting into debt.

Pub chef Golborne, 25, who now lives and works away from Newton Abbot, admitted assault causing actual bodily harm and was ordered to do 21 hours unpaid community work, pay £500 compensation, and attend 12 sessions of rehabilitation activities by Recorder Mr David Chidgey at Exeter Crown Court. 

The judge decided not to impose a tagged alcohol abstinence requirement after hearing that Golborne’s job requires him to taste sauces containing wine or brandy which could set off the equipment. 

He told him: ‘You accept using a weapon to strike the victim on multiple occasions with a broom handle or something equivalent which was described as a long piece of wood. You struck her head and on her elbow as she was defending herself and she says that when she was on the ground you struck her three or four more times.’

Mr Paul Grumbar, prosecuting, said Golborne had been drinking before the attack, which was triggered by a power cut at the caravan site on the night of June 19, 2021. 

The victim left her caravan after hearing glass garden lights being broken and was then attacked near a gazebo.

He told police he had drunk half a bottle of rum while watching rugby on television but had little recollection of the attack.

Miss Mary McCarthy, defending, said Golborne has no previous convictions and is now working away from the area as a chef. 

He entered his guilty plea on the basis that the weapon was not a baseball bat and that he had not hit the victim when she was helpless on the ground.