A head teacher who smashed his deputy over the head with a spanner in a fit of ‘overwhelming sexual jealousy’ has been freed from jail after just four months.
Anthony John Felton, 54, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison in April over the attack at St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Comprehensive School in Aberavon, South Wales, a month earlier.
CCTV of the incident caused onlookers in the public gallery at Swansea Crown Court to gasp as Felton was shown stepping behind Richard Pyke, 51, quietly slipping the wrench from inside his jacket and swinging it at his head.
Mr Pyke, who was sitting at his desk oblivious to what was incoming, fell to the ground and desperately tried to fend off further blows by kicking out at Felton before colleagues came to his aid.
Felton pleaded guilty to attempted GBH with intent.
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The court heard that married Felton had recently found out he was the father of a fellow teacher’s child and suspected Mr Pyke had since started his own relationship with the same member of staff.
Ieuan Rees, prosecuting, said: ‘The evidence of his wife and the admissions he made to her suggested Mr Felton had been in a relationship with another member of staff and had recently discovered he was the father of her child.
‘Furthermore, he believed that Mr Pyke had now begun his own relationship with that lady.’
In a victim impact statement, Mr Pyke described how he would live with the attack for the rest of his life, saying it had taken ‘what made me, me’.
‘I trusted you completely,’ he said.
‘The fear that you could attempt to do me such harm, smiling at me just seconds before, will always be with me.’
Judge Paul Thomas KC said an attack by a head on their deputy was ‘I suspect, entirely without precedent’ and was the result of ‘overwhelming sexual jealousy’.
The judge said the attack ‘was in effect an ambush’, with Mr Pyke believing his attacker to be his friend.
He said: ‘Ultimately, the trigger for your act of extreme violence was of your own doing, the overwhelming sexual jealousy arising from an adulterous affair and the uncontrollable rage it created in you.’
The Prison Service has confirmed Felton was released this month under the Home Detention Curfew Scheme.
A spokesperson said: ‘Offenders released on Home Detention Curfew are subject to strict conditions and must be tagged. If they break the rules, they will be sent back to prison.’
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