A dealer slashed at a woman’s exposed throat amid weeks of drug-fuelled mob violence on a housing estate.
The victim only escaped potential decapitation because, a court heard, another, balaclava-clad attacker happened to pull her head back - exposing her neck but narrowly causing the blade to miss.
Lisa Marie Cross later told police she felt the “whoosh” as the blade cut the air instead of her arteries after Callum Brown snarled: “I’m going to kill you, you f*****g s**g.”
At one point during the summer feud, a court has heard, Brown himself himself spent days in a coma after having his head stoved in with a baseball bat.
To stem the chaos, police on The Nightingales estate in Greenham imposed a rare, emergency Section 60 order giving them enhanced powers to keep order.
Brown subsequently denied possessing the machete and making threats to kill, claiming it was a case of mistaken identity.
But his lies were unconvincing and he was convicted following a trial.
Brown also has previous convictions and suspended prison sentences for offences including drug dealing, assault, dangerous driving and driving while disqualified.
On Monday, June 10, the 22-year-old appeared for sentencing at Reading Crown Court.
Cathy Oliver, prosecuting, said: “There’s a long history to this matter.”
It began, she said, when police raided Ms Cross’ home on the estate and seized a drugs haul.
She explained that Brown had given them to Ms Cross’ 15-year-old son to sell for him but that, following the raid, Brown held her family responsible for his financial loss.
On March 26, 2022, the court heard, a masked mob descended on Ms Cross’ Ewing Way home, throwing paving slabs, yelling threats and smashing windows as her terrified children cowered inside.
Ms Oliver said Ms Cross rushed out into the darkness to see people armed with weapons running amok, smashing her windows, and those of her neighbours, and hurling rocks towards her.
She added: “She recognised Mr Brown and two women she knew.”
Thankfully, the court heard, as Brown slashed at her throat with the machete, one of the women pulled her, causing her head to jerk back.
Ms Cross later told police: “I felt the ‘whoosh’ of the machete…I thought Callum was going to kill me.”
At that moment, the court heard, police arrived.
Ms Cross said in a victim impact statement her children were traumatised, with one unable to attend school and another suffering separation anxiety.
Sophie Evans, defending, stressed how prisons were overcrowded and that her client could be rehabilitated in the community.
She said Brown would be vulnerable in prison because he continued to suffer from neurological damage from the attack leading to the coma, and that those allegedly responsible were currently in HMP Bullingdon themselves.
In addition he was working part-time as a painter and decorator and was “motivated to turn his life around,” went on Ms Evans.
The judge, Recorder Wilson, noted the offences were “rather old now” and she considered there was a “realistic prospect” of rehabilitation.
She stressed she wanted people reading press reports of the case to know that, rather than the public being protected from Brown for a short time by imprisoning him, society would be better served by rehabilitating him.
Accordingly she sentenced Brown to two years imprisonment suspended for 18 months.
In addition he must complete 20 days of rehabilitation activities and observe a six month curfew between 8pm and 6am.
Finally, she made Brown subject to an indefinite restraining order preventing him from contacting or approaching Ms Cross or her children.
Last month two teenagers, Jake Bozarth and Jake Blandford, were jailed for witness intimidation against Brown arising from the summer of violence.
* BROWN is currently subject to a court order forbidding details of his address to be published.
