Man jailed for ramming tractor into rival’s linked home

The situation between Nathan Blagg and Luke Lancaster boiled over after a video showed Lancaster urinating on the gravestone of Blagg’s brother and father before kicking it over.

Teesside Crown Court heard how on April 21 Lancaster spotted Blagg chatting in the street, mounted the kerb and drove at him.

Blagg leapt out of the way and confronted the Audi driver before smashing the driver’s-side window of his car.

Nathan Blagg (Image: Cleveland Police)

In retaliation, Blagg stole a tractor and ploughed it into a home connected to his rival on May 9, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Jamie Wilson said the terraced house was empty at the time, but the crash caused substantial damage.

Blagg and accomplices stole the tractor from a farm in Castlelevington, near Yarm, then drove it about nine miles at high speed into the front of the house.

CCTV captured the tractor speeding through Middlesbrough with a Land Rover Discovery following as a getaway vehicle.

Mr Wilson said the victims had moved out at the end of April after the address was targeted in earlier incidents.

Police are investigating after a tractor crashed into a house on Priory Road, Middlesbrough in the early hours of this morning (May 9) (Image: ANDY FUTERS/NORTHERN ECHO)

The cost of the damage has not been confirmed because the house has yet to be repaired.

Damage to the tractor and trailer left the farmer facing a bill of almost £80,000.

Blagg was arrested on May 14 after crashing a stolen Jaguar into a lamppost and fracturing his pelvis, the court heard.

Blagg lost control and smashed into a lamppost while speeding along Middlesbrough’s Riverside Park Road.

Hospital scans showed Blagg had items lodged in his stomach and bottom which contained Class C drugs, the court heard.

Mr Wilson said Blagg’s recovered mobile phone placed him at the farm and later at the Priory Road address in Middlesbrough in the early hours.

Blagg, of Addington Road, Middlesbrough, admitted three sets of charges.

The 28-year-old admitted affray and motoring offences over the April 21 incident.

Borough Road incident in MIddlesbrough (Image: OLIVIA HOWLETT)

Blagg admitted criminal damage, recklessly endangering life and aggravated vehicle taking over the May 9 attack.

He also admitted aggravated vehicle taking, possessing a Class C drug and motoring offences over the May 14 incident.

His barrister, Rod Hunt, said the social media video showing the desecration of Blagg’s brother’s and father’s grave had triggered the retaliation.

Mr Hunt said: “The driving at Mr Blagg, throwing over the bonnet of the car, was the final straw it would seem.

“I saw some distressing footage posted on social media which shows the grave of Mr Blagg’s father and brother – Mr Lancaster urinates on the grave and flowers before the headstone was kicked over.”

Mr Hunt said the tractor attack was carried out ‘in the strange logic of the underworld’, where targeting property is seen as less serious than running someone over.

“As we know, the law of the land is not the same as the law of the jungle,” he said.

“That seems to have been going through his mind at the time – I will do something serious to the property but will not do something serious to a person.”

Speaking about the May 14 crash, Mr Hunt said there was no rational explanation for Blagg’s driving, which left a passenger seriously injured.

Recorder Paul Reid jailed Blagg for seven years and two months, followed by two years on extended licence.

He said: “In the spring of this year, you were grossly aggrieved and rightly so, by the disgusting behaviour of those who desecrated your relative’s grave and compounded that disgusting behaviour by posting it on social media.

“This was the start of this appalling chain of events.”

Blagg was banned from driving for seven years after his release from prison.