Jailed: Lottery winner targeted wife with petrol at house
A drunk Lottery winner said to have poured petrol from a can in through the window of a house where his wife was visiting has been jailed.
David Thornley, 42, wanted to frighten those inside into believing that he was going to burn the house down.
His barrister Matthew Curtis said that while the prosecution had said Thornley started to pour petrol through the window, it was the defence case that petrol was in fact spilled during the struggle that had taken place.
Thornley, 42, of Shellbrook Drive in Ruabon, north of Chirk, admitted making the threat to damage a property at Ruabon on October 12 this year.
He also admitted an earlier assault on his partner dating back to the summer of last year.
Jailing him for 21 months, Judge Rhys Rowlands said that he threatened to set fire to the home of a family where his wife had gone.
The judge said that in the summer of last year the defendant lost his temper and punched his wife in the face for no reason.
It was a heavy blow and she suffered a suspected fracture to her eye socket.
She was watching television at that house when the defendant arrived in a drunken state, asking to speak to her.
He was pushed away from the door, returned and banged on the door and he was again asked through the window to leave.
But as they tried to close the window he produced a petrol container and started to push the nozzle through the window, said the judge.
In addition to the prison sentence, Thornley was made the subject of a five-year restraining order not to approach the family who lived in the house. Prosecutor David Mainstone said it was not the first attack.
