A man has been jailed for life after attempting to murder four children between the ages of eight and just nine-months-old
Owen Scott has been handed a life sentence after admitting the attempted murder of four children after he hit their heads with a hammer and crashed a car that they were inside into the wall of a pub.
The 29-year-old, who was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court today, previously admitted to deliberately crashing his grey Dacia Logan car into the wall of the Travellers' Inn pub at 92mph in Barnsley at around 12.25am on 23 August last year.
Scott, who was father to three of the children and step-father to the other, will serve a minimum term of 14 years for attempted murder.
All four children - two girls aged eight and seven, and two little boys aged 21-months and nine-months-old - were hospitalised after the attack.
But the children were found to have injuries that were "not all thought to be consistent with the collision," according to police at the time of the incident.
Shockingly, Scott, from Fawley near Southampton, had a hammer in the car at the time, and a previous hearing heard how he had used it to "inflict blows on the children in the car to their heads".
Simon Kealey QC, prosecuting, told the court: "As a result of failing to kill them in that way, he ended up driving towards the pub."
Today, the court heard how Scott may have been suffering from a mental illness.
Michelle Colborne QC, defending, told the court at his hearing in January: "Although he has been in custody since the commission of the offences, his psychological position was unclear.
"He may have been suffering from short-lived psychosis. There's a mitigation which demonstrates at the time he was likely suffering from psychosis, short-lived affecting his self-control.
"He has very little or no memory of the events in the car."
He pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder and driving a vehicle dangerously on the A629, Copster Lane, Barnsley.
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