Drug dealer and burglar behind bars after spitting in woman's face

Barrington Morrant, 20, blew the chance he had been given by a judge when he threatened the woman and spat in her face after she had accused him of hitting her daughter.

After being found guilty by Black Country magistrates of common assault, his case was sent to Warwick Crown Court where he accepted being in breach of a suspended sentence he was serving for a drugs-related burglary.

Morrant, of Lloyd Street, Wolverhampton, was jailed for two months for the assault and also must serve the remaining 12 months of the suspended sentence he was given for the burglary.

That sentence of 18 months, suspended for two years, had been imposed in September 2019 by Judge Andrew Lockhart QC, who reserved any breaches of the order to himself.

The burglary took place in Hereford in April 2018 when a couple were upstairs at their home in and heard a noise from the kitchen downstairs.

They found Morrant armed with a baseball bat which he hit against the wall, smashing a tile, before taking £80 in cash.

When Morrant was arrested shortly afterwards, he still had the money and the bat, and he was identified by the couple.

Prosecutor Katie Fox said that in 2017 Morrant had been arrested for possessing heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply, and "may have been working within a county lines operation".

For that he had been given a referral order at the Back Country Youth Court, and Miss Fox said there was a "preliminary finding" that he may have been the victim of modern slavery.

The burglary victims’ address was believed to have been used by county lines dealers to store drugs, and in the weeks before the burglary there had been a police raid where a significant quantity of drugs were seized.

It was suspected Morrant had been sent there to recover a perceived debt because of displeasure with the occupants over the missing drugs.

At the latest hearing, Geoffrey Dann, prosecuting, said that in August last year Morrant was living in the home of a woman, who was caring for her granddaughter for the day.

A woman who came to collect the granddaughter realised she had suffered a cut lip. When Morrant was confronted by the girl's mother he denied hitting her and said he had "only threw her".

Morrant then picked up a weight bar and threateningly moved it towards her face, and as she backed away out of the room, he told her: “Get out of my f***ing yard.”

After she defiantly pointed out it was not his "yard", but her family’s, he followed her out into the street, still brandishing the weight bar, and spat in her face.

He went back inside, and after threatening to throw the bar at her from an upstairs window, came back out with a plastic shank in one hand and the weight bar in the other – but the police then arrived and he was arrested, added Mr Dann.

Ian Windridge, defending, said: “I have left Mr Morrant in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Your Honour will take an extremely dim view of this matter.

“Having said that, you have a young man before you who has, in his discussions with the probation service, accepted some responsibility.

"There is still further work that could, and perhaps should, be done with him.”

But jailing Morrant, Judge Lockhart told him: “We met before. I said if you committed another offence, you will be standing there and I will be sitting here, and I will send you to custody unless I considered it unjust to do so.

“I do not. This offence was in breach of that suspended sentence.

"You spat in her face, and this was at a time when the country was in a lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic.”