guilty plea | 

Man who donned balaclava and put knife to 13-year-old boy’s throat spared jail

Today at 07:03

A company director who donned a balaclava and threatened a terrified 13-year-old boy with a knife has been spared jail.

Christopher Espie (39) had grabbed the teenager after his mates kicked the front door of Espie’s north Down home.

As the Bangor man stood in the dock of Downpatrick Crown Court, Judge Geoffrey Miller KC told him he “effectively imprisoned a child” and subjected him to what amounted to “mental torture” and his offences warranted a prison sentence.

He added, however, that given mitigation in the case, coupled with Espie’s background and guilty plea, he felt that a probation order would benefit both the defendant.

In an incident branded “sinister” and “bizarre”, Espie, from the Bryansburn Road in Bangor, admitted two counts of common assault.

Following the electrical firm director’s confessions, the prosecution left two other charges — false imprisonment and making a threat to kill — “on the books”.

Judge Miller told the court that on May 1 last year Espie was in his home when his front door was kicked sometime between 9.30pm and 10.30pm.

The defendant ran outside where he remonstrated with a group of teenagers.

When one of them pointed out the victim as the door-kicking culprit, Espie ran after him, grabbed him and “marched him back to his house”.

With the 13-year-old boy sitting on the sofa, Espie “donned gloves and a balaclava” and produced a knife which he used to threaten the child.

“The defendant was slurring his words,” said Judge Miller, adding that when the boy protested that he had done nothing wrong and asked to leave, Espie was “laughing at him… and told him to f*** up and grow a set”.

Espie offered the teenager a cigarette, which he refused, and about half an hour later the defendant offered to get a taxi for his hostage, who “started to cry”.

The fact that Espie suggested he could “get one of our members” to give the boy a lift only served to add to his fear, said Judge Miller.

When the 13-year-old got home and told his mother, she went to confront Espie, but he “said he didn’t know the child and denied producing a knife”.

Police searched his home and they uncovered both a knife and a balaclava but, during interviews, he denied producing it or using it.

He told police he had been in his living room when there were bangs at his door and that his intention, when he got whom he believed to be the culprit inside, was to effect a citizen’s arrest.

Judge Miller said there were multiple aggravating features to the case, including the age and vulnerability of the victim and the use of a weapon to threaten him during what was a “prolonged incident during which the child was put in fear”.

Having described it as a “bizarre but deeply concerning case”, Judge Miller said that by putting on the gloves and balaclava, Espie’s actions amounted to “what was, in effect, mental torture” of the boy.

“But then to produce a knife and hold it to his throat is shocking.”

He revealed that, “not surprisingly”, the boy has suffered mentally as a result of the trauma, experiencing recurring nightmares, flashbacks and cold sweats.

Judge Miller said Espie had expressed clear remorse for what was a “gross overreaction to the group of youths”.

In addition to a two-probation order, Judge Miller imposed a two-year restraining order and told Espie he had to pay £500 compensation to his victim.