Psychotic father, 29, who tried to kill four children with a hammer before crashing their car into pub is jailed for life

Andy Wells
·Freelance Writer
Owen Scott ploughed his car with four children inside into the wall of a pub near Barnsley in August last year. (SWNS)
Owen Scott ploughed his car with four children inside into the wall of a pub near Barnsley in August last year. (SWNS)

A father who tried to kill his three young children with a hammer before driving their car into a pub wall with them inside has been jailed for life.

Owen Scott, 29, attacked his daughter, toddler son, nine-month-old boy and step-daughter, eight, before ploughing a car with the kids inside into a wall last August.

Scott attacked his children during a drug-induced psychotic episode which left his daughter, seven, partially paralysed and the others severely injured.

<em>The 29-year-old was arrested after a car he was driving crashed into a pub (SWNS)</em>
The 29-year-old was arrested after a car he was driving crashed into a pub (SWNS)
<em>Four children were in the vehicle – two girls, aged seven and eight, and two boys, aged 21 months and nine months (SWNS)</em>
Four children were in the vehicle – two girls, aged seven and eight, and two boys, aged 21 months and nine months (SWNS)

He was arrested after being pulled from the wreckage of his Dacia Logan outside the Traveller’s Inn near Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

All four children were taken to hospital in a serious condition with injuries “not all thought to be consistent with the collision”.

His daughter will be wheelchair-dependent for the rest of her life and lost a large section of her skull in the attack, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

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Prosecutors said Scott used a hammer to inflict blows on the children and then drove deliberately at the front wall of The Travellers Inn, on the A629 between Sheffield and Huddersfield.

Scott, from Fawley, Hampshire, admitted four counts of attempted murder and one count of dangerous driving at a previous hearing in January.

<em>The children were taken to hospital in a serious condition with injuries “not all thought to be consistent with the collision” (SWNS)</em>
The children were taken to hospital in a serious condition with injuries “not all thought to be consistent with the collision” (SWNS)
<em>Scott admitted four counts of attempted murder and one count of dangerous driving in January (SWNS)</em>
Scott admitted four counts of attempted murder and one count of dangerous driving in January (SWNS)

Jailing him for life with a minimum 14 years on Thursday, a judge told him: ‘You will have to live for the rest of your life knowing that you have damaged, in some cases irrecoverably, the health, both physically and psychologically, of your children.’

Michelle Colborne QC, defending, said Scott had “little or no memory” of events in the car.

Miss Colborne said her client had undergone a psychiatric evaluation and although he was found to be suffering from a “short-lived psychosis” at the time, this was not enough to amount to a psychiatric defence to attempted murder.

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