Man stole a tractor and drove it into a Middlesbrough house. Then a court heard his rival had desecrated his father’s and brother’s graves

A 28-year-old man was sent to prison after he took a farm tractor and a hay baler and crashed them into a house in Middlesbrough, United Kingdom. Nathan Blagg received seven years and two months in jail plus two years on an extended license. Teesside Crown Court heard he admitted aggravated vehicle taking and criminal damage while reckless as to whether life was endangered.

According to The US Mirror, the property on Priory Road was empty when the crash happened and was linked to Luke Lancaster, a man with whom Blagg had an ongoing feud, the court was told. Recorder Paul Reid said the house essentially had to be rebuilt. Prosecutors said a Massey Ferguson was taken from farmer Ian Tate near Kirklevington in North Yorkshire and driven about nine miles at speed before it hit the three-bedroom terraced house in May.

The court heard the tractor needed more than $74,000 in repairs. The hay baler, which had cost Tate $39,000, was written off. Reid said the tractor almost went into a party wall shared with a neighboring house.

Judge told Blagg he had been grossly aggrieved by the desecration of family graves

Rod Hunt, defending, said he had seen “distressing footage” shared on social media by Lancaster in which he urinated on the graves of Blagg’s brother and father, and kicked over a gravestone. Hunt told the court that Blagg and others treated damage to property as less serious than a physical attack.

He said: “By the strange logic of the underworld, the targeting of property is less serious than, in fact, running over Mr Lancaster or treating him in the way he had been treated. We both know the law of the land is not the same as the law of the jungle.”

Jamie Wilson, prosecuting, said Lancaster drove his car into Blagg outside the Probation Service offices, throwing him over the hood. Blagg later told police that any violence that occurred in the street on April 21 was in self-defense. He also admitted affray over that clash in Middlesbrough town center. Lancaster has been jailed for his part in the violence that day, the court heard.

Five days after the house was hit, Blagg admitted another count of aggravated vehicle taking. The court heard he stole a Jaguar, drove it at speed into a lamppost, and caused the car to spin 180 degrees. The streetlight was thrown 20 meters down the road. Both the driver and a passenger were seriously injured, yet Blagg tried to drive the wrecked car away while paramedics were there, according to the court.

He was already disqualified from driving when he took the tractor and when he crashed the Jaguar, the court was told. The family that had lived in the rammed house had already left their home of 24 years because of earlier attacks.

The woman who lived there said in a victim impact statement: “I don’t tell anyone where I live (now) for fear my family and I will be violently attacked.” The fear of retaliation can leave victims feeling unsafe in their own homes, a problem that extends beyond this case, as when a Florida man threatened to shoot a Black woman parked outside her house.

She said she was not sure if she would be able to get a mortgage or insure a house again. A man who lived there added, “We are a hard-working family and we don’t deserve to be put through this.” Tate said the theft had cost him thousands of pounds. “Farming is hard enough without all this I have been put through,” he said.

Reid told Blagg: “You were in the spring of this year grossly aggrieved, and rightly so, by the disgusting behavior of those who desecrated your relatives’ graves and then compounded that disgusting behavior by posting material on social media showing this.” On the damage charge from the tractor crash, the judge said: “This is about as serious as it gets, in my judgment.”

He said the case was made worse by the enormous amount of damage, the planning, and the vehicle used. Blagg was also banned from driving for seven years.

Detective Chief Inspector Dan Cook said outside court: “To steal a tractor from a farm, to then be driven at high speed towards Middlesbrough and rammed with extreme force into a house shows the lengths Blagg will go to instil fear and violence, all without a thought or care for residents and the wider public. While it is lucky no one was inside that house at the time, Blagg was not aware of this, or if those inside neighboring properties were home when the tractor was rammed.”

Cook added: “The danger and significant risk it posed to neighboring properties meant occupants had to evacuate for their safety due to the structural damage caused.”