Chester cyclist gets nine months for assaulting partially blind pensioner

A cyclist who assaulted a partially blind pensioner is now spending the next nine months behind bars.

Timothy Walpole, of Clover Lane in Chester, pleaded guilty to the unprovoked assault on an 80-year-old man at Chester Crown Court on Friday 24 March.

The court was told how on the morning of Monday 19 September Walpole was cycling along Hamilton Place in Chester when he collided with the victim.

After a few heated words, the two men moved on but as the victim was walking down Crook Street and into an alleyway, Walpole, aged 63, approached him.

As the elderly man turned away to leave, Walpole assaulted him, causing the victim to hit the floor.

The assault left him with cuts and bruises to his face and body as well as an injury to his eye.

The court heard how a number of people saw Walpole attack the man with one witnessing an angry confrontation before he raised his arm to strike the victim with a green bag and cycled away.

Detective Constable Stephen Owens, of Chester Local Policing Unit, said:

This was an unprovoked attack on a vulnerable man who was left injured but also badly shaken by what happened to him.

Walpole put fear into a defenceless elderly man who was simply going about his daily business and showed no regard for the distress his actions would have caused.

I can only hope, knowing Walpole is now being punished for his crime, it allows the victim to come to terms with the attack and to try and move forward.