Men jailed for attempted machete attack

Ben Collins (left) and Samuel Nicholson (right) were each jailed for 28 months

Two men have been jailed after they attempted to attack a man with a machete in Eastfield, near Scarborough.

York Crown Court heard a man in his 20s had been lured to an address on 19 April, where Ben Collins, 25 and Samuel Nicholson, 25, had been waiting in hazmat suits.

Armed with machetes, they chased the victim, who managed to run away uninjured.

Collins, of All Saints Road, Scarborough and Nicholson, of Trafalgar Road, Scarborough, were both jailed for 28 months, after admitting possessing an offensive weapon, affray and attempted kidnap.

A third suspect, Jacob Jankowski, 21, from Overdale, Eastfield, pleaded guilty to encouraging and assisting in the commission of an indictable only offence.

He was sentenced to a community order and ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.

The men put on white hazmat suits and dark gloves before the attempted attack

An investigation found the victim had not been the intended target of the attempted attack and it had been a case of mistaken identity.

The court heard Collins and Jankowski had colluded to lure the victim to the location where he could be attacked.

Nicholson had bought the white hazmat suits and gloves in the days before the incident.

A member of the public later found two large machete-style knives in a black bin liner and the two white hazmat suits stuffed into bushes in their front garden.

Det Con Alfie Thomlinson said: "This was an audacious attempt to cause significant harm to the victim.

"However, their downfall wasn't just the speed of the victim in running away, it was also luring the wrong person to the scene of their crime and leaving a trail of breadcrumb evidence which led to them soon being identified, arrested, charged and remanded into custody.

"The street they lured their wrong victim to is a relatively quiet street in Eastfield with several young families living on it, but it was the monstrous and disgusting actions of these men that changed this and brought terror and violence to the local community."

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