A MAN who threatened a petrol station employee with a baseball bat and smashed up a newspaper stand during “five minutes of madness” handed himself in after he was caught on CCTV.

Lee Stanton, 22, of Shrewton Walk, admitted using threatening language to an employee in the BP Petrol Station on Cricklade Road and using a baseball bat to damage property during an incident on January 14.

The court heard Stanton had received a call from his sister, who was with his ill father at the petrol station, telling him they had a flat tyre and the spare was also flat.

After cycling over to help he found that the air compressor was not working.

He said the employee he asked refused to help, and had laughed, causing his father to “limp” away and drive home with a flat tyre.

CCTV pictures showed Stanton arguing with the employee at 7.13pm. He left, but returned at 7.41pm, now wearing a black hooded coat and armed with a baseball bat.

Pauline Lambert, prosecuting, said: “He admitted to being so angry that he went home, put on a black hooded coat so that the employee would not recognise him, got the bat and returned – that’s forethought.”

She added: “He became angry with the staff member and came back with a baseball bat which he began swinging around.

“He hit an Advertiser newsstand and a Costa Coffee sign and was 12 feet away from the employee at the time. He left the building at 7.46pm, after five minutes.”

Philip Hall, defending, said the defendant “had made most of the running in the case” by handing himself into police and was reacting to how badly his father had been treated.

He said: “He was angry at the way his father had been treated. He made the proverbial full and frank confession. Having made a complete fool of himself he did all he could to make things right in this five minutes of madness.”

The court heard that Stanton had recently split from his partner, moved back into his mother’s home, was coming to the end of a temporary work contract and had a seriously ill father.

Hall said: “All these things came together at the same time and he reacted in an utterly unwise manner. He never attempted to conceal it, he wanted to put things right.”

The court was told that after seeing the CCTV images of himself, Stanton had turned himself into the police and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Chairman of the bench Mrs Matthews said: “We are going to award a community order to do 150 hours of unpaid work, also 21 hours at the attendance centre.

“As the store has not asked for it we do not want any compensation. You will pay £85 to cover the costs of bringing the case to court and a £60 victim surcharge, which you will begin to pay back in four weeks at a rate of £5 a week.”