Thug who bragged about ‘whipping the arse’ of train conductor at Co Antrim station is jailed

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/courts/thug-who-bragged-about-whipping-the-arse-of-train-conductor-at-co-antrim-station-is-jailed/a783658635.html

Paul Higgins
Yesterday at 15:36

A bare-knuckle boxer who gloated to other passengers after assaulting a train conductor was handed a six-year sentence today.

Stephen Weldon looked stunned as Judge Alistair Devlin ordered that the 35-year-old will serve three years behind bars and three years under supervised licence conditions.

The judge told Antrim Crown Court it was with “some hesitation” that he was not assessing Weldon as a dangerous offender given his history of violence.

He described the incident as a “truly appalling… vicious and violent unprovoked attack upon an innocent man and added that Weldon then proceeded to take a triumphalist video of himself declaring to shocked and terrified passengers that the conductor “got his arse whipped”.

“If that wasn't already bad enough, with an almost unbelievable level of supreme inhumanity and arrogance, this defendant then chose to post that video by means of so-called social media to his Facebook page under the heading, ‘I run this train now’.”

At an earlier hearing, Weldon, from Inniscarn Drive in Newtownabbey, admitted attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm with intent, as well as offences of damaging the victim’s mobile phone and a cash bag and a mobile phone which belonged to Translink, on May 8 last year.

Outlining the facts of the case today, Judge Devlin told the court it was just after 9am when the police were called to the incident at the Magheramorne halt just outside Larne after the conductor had been punched, kicked and physically dragged off the train.

As the train made its way from Belfast to Larne, the conductor spotted Weldon using a vape and told him that he would have to get off at the next stop.

Weldon asked how he could get to work and the conductor told him there might be a bus service or that he could walk to Larne. The two men then “fist bumped” and the train continued on its journey.

While the train remained at Larne station, the victim noticed there was a charger for the vaping device. When the train arrived back at the Magheramorne halt, he went to hand the device back to Weldon. However, instead of taking it, the thug punched him and then “violently pushed the victim back into the interior of the train carriage” where he landed multiple kicks and punches to his head and body.

Judge Devlin said Weldon proceeded to drag his victim out of the train and onto the platform where he started to once again punching and kick him to his face and head.

“While the unfortunate victim lay defenceless on the ground, the defendant struck the victim around six or seven times on the ground with both his fists and also with his feet,” said the judge. He added that after the conductor managed to momentarily overpower Weldon, he ran through the train to the safety of the driver’s cab “shouting for passengers to call the police”.

“The defendant then proceeded to record a video on his mobile phone as he re-entered and then calmly walked up the inside of the train, announcing to the passengers in a loud voice: ‘Hello folks, I'm sorry for the hold-up. The guy that was running the train was acting tough and got his arse whipped. That's why there's a hold-up. Sorry, yeah. Hope you have a good day. Sorry about that. God bless’,” Judge Devlin told the court.

Weldon was arrested at the train station and during police questioning conceded that “he saw red” when faced with a 90-minute walk to work and a fear he would lose the job he had just started.

He admitted that he dragged the conductor off the train and accepted striking him, but “denied assaulting him further”. Weldon claimed the conductor’s “attitude wasn’t right” and told cops his victim “was just trying to be the alpha male and that he had wanted to be more alpha male”.

The conductor was taken to hospital where he was found to have a badly-swollen jaw and had sustained five chipped teeth, as well as bruising and abrasions.

Judge Devlin said the “high quality video” of the incident disproved Weldon’s “wholly inaccurate and misleading” account of the assault, which had a litany of aggravating features including that it was a sustained and unprovoked attack on a public servant who was kicked and punched by a series of blows, including when he was prone and defenceless on the ground.

He said Weldon had displayed a complete disregard for the likely consequences of his actions, had previous convictions for assault in Northern Ireland and in Preston, where he used to live, and that the conductor had been “attacked in broad daylight and in full view of what was clearly a number of frightened members of the public”.

“Some of them can actually be seen on the CCTV footage fleeing in terror out through the station from the train,” said the judge, adding that the impact on the victim and his family was a further aggravating feature because as well as the physical and ongoing psychological consequences, he had to take a pay cut to move jobs.

The conductor’s victim impact statement said: “My day-to-day life has been altered because of this ordeal, as well as my professional career. I was simply carrying out my job as a train conductor and never thought I would be subject to such an attack on my person.”