A marketing executive wrecked his girlfriend’s home, wrestled with a police dog, attacked a stranger with a socket wrench and crawled around a neighbour’s back garden singing Christmas songs in the middle of summer after a cocaine binge.
Alexander Scott-Mills, 34, from Northallerton, terrorised multiple victims in his home town and in Northampton where his then girlfriend lived, York Crown Court heard.
In the first incident in Brixworth, Northampton, in June last year, the digital-marketing whizz had a line of cocaine at his former girlfriend’s home as they sat down to watch a film, said prosecutor Brooke Morrison.
“Later in the evening, she noticed he was acting strangely,” added the barrister.
Moments after Scott-Mills went to the bathroom, his partner heard a “smashing” noise. When she went to investigate, he was kicking the bathroom door “from the inside out”
When she opened the door, she found him sitting on the floor, his head dripping with blood, the bathroom mirror smashed, the sink pulled from the wall and “extensive damage” to the rest of the room.
When she asked him what was wrong, he told her she was “useless”. He then stood up and started grappling with her as he tried to take the keys to the back door.
During the struggle, he threatened to kill her and told her: “I don’t want this to end badly for you.”
He was brandishing the bathroom-door handle which he had wrenched from its fixture and used it to repeatedly strike the victim on the arms and legs with enough force to rip her trousers and leave her with bruises.
She told him to leave the house which he did, but that was just the start of his cocaine-fuelled trail of destruction.
“When leaving the address, he appears to have gone on something of a rampage, climbing into the back garden of (a neighbour’s house), running around the garden, banging on the back door and shouting and screaming,” said Ms Morrison.
“He damaged a bin cover and two fence panels. He then climbed into another garden, damaging fence panels and a concrete fence post, then crawled around (the male owner’s) garden singing Christmas songs.
“He ripped panels out of the garden fence at the back of the property, causing about £500 of damage.”
The trail of destruction moved on to a nearby property where, at about 2.30am, Scott-Mills peered through the letterbox and tried the door handle while “bobbing up and down” and then ripped an internet cable out of a box on an external wall.
The homeowner looked on in horror from inside his house as Scott-Mills dinted the caravan on the driveway. The victim contacted his neighbour who was a police officer and dog handler.
The officer turned up in full uniform and released his police dog. Scott-Mills ran away but the dog locked on to his arm, causing him to fall into bushes in a neighbouring property.
Scott-Mills “wrestled” with the dog, put her in a choke hold and refused to desist as the officer told him to let go. The officer pepper-sprayed Scott-Mills and hit him with his police baton, forcing him to release his grip on the dog which was “in pain and distress”.
Scott-Mills remained sitting in the front porch of the house, then got up and tried to walk away. He was again set upon by the police dog which locked on to his leg, but instead of submitting to arrest, Scott-Mills simply walked into the road with the dog attached to his ankle.
The officer was again forced to use his baton on Scott-Mills and this time he was detained until officers on duty arrived to arrest him. The dog wasn’t injured but was “covered in the defendant’s blood”.
Scott-Mills, of Aumale Road, Northallerton, was brought in for questioning, refused to comment and released under investigation.
He was still under investigation when, on May 31 this year, he went on the rampage again, this time in Brompton.
The first unfortunate victim to come across him was a man walking his dog Dylan in the village just after 6am.
Scott-Mills – who worked for an upmarket global hospitality recruitment company based in London – suddenly appeared, ran over to him shouting and swearing, and pushed him into a wall, screaming: “You know who I am?”
When the victim said he did not, Scott-Mills punched him three times in the face and then kicked him and his dog “multiple times”.
“He then started dragging (the named victim) along the street,” added Ms Morrison.
“He ripped open (the victim’s) top, hitting him on his chest and knocked him to the floor, dragging him into the road.”
The victim and Dylan the dog finally managed to escape after a passer-by intervened. He suffered injuries including a cut to his mouth and nose, a swollen eye, grazing to his back and a cut to his hand.
Having terrorised a complete stranger and Dylan the dog, Scott-Mills made a beeline for a couple’s home nearby and there began an incident which was arguably even scarier.
The husband was on the driveway, loading items into his car boot, when a strange man climbed into his car and tried to start the engine using a screwdriver.
The victim tried to get Scott-Mills out of the car. A struggle ensued during which Scott-Mills tried to hit him.
“On getting out of the car, (Scott-Mills) hit him with a rake,” said Ms Morrison.
The victim suffered cuts to the front and back of his head. His startled wife came out of the house onto the driveway where Scott-Mills struck her on the back of the head with a socket wrench before running into the back garden.
Police found the injured woman looking “rather dazed, seated on the pavement outsider her house”.
When police arrived, Scott-Mills was still in the back garden, looking “dishevelled” and still wielding the wrench. He was duly arrested and brought in for questioning, telling officers he had suffered a “psychotic episode”.
He was ultimately charged with a plethora of offences in connection with both incidents in Brompton and Northampton including three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, two counts of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, one count of possessing an offensive weapon, namely the wrench, causing a public nuisance and four counts of damaging property.
He admitted the offences and appeared for sentence via video link today (Friday, August 1) after being remanded in custody.
Ms Morrison told the court that Dylan the dog was now afraid of “unknown men” when he was taken for walks.
She said the damage to property in the spooky series of incidents, including at his former girlfriend’s house and neighbouring properties, was estimated at £2,000.
Scott-Mills, a father-of-one, had a previous conviction from 2023 for criminal damage and assaulting an emergency worker.
Defence barrister Josh Normanton said that Scott-Mills had “next to no memory” of what occurred in either incident.
“He doesn’t recognise himself as the sort of person who would commit that sort of an offence and is very, very sorry,” he added.
“He acknowledges that conduct and the reason for it is ultimately bound up in a very long-standing abuse of cocaine.”
He said that Scott-Mills also had long-standing mental-health issues linked to his drug addiction dating back to his late teens.
He said that the marketing executive, who was “living a double life”, got engaged in 2020 but his fiancée left him before they got married.
he had since undergone counselling and drug rehabilitation and was now in a stable relationship with a new partner.
Judge Simon Hickey said that Scott-Mills’ “bizarre” behaviour was a salutary lesson in how drugs affected mental health, evidenced not least by his singing of Christmas carols in the height of summer.
He told the well-spoken defendant: “Drugs ruin lives and yours is a classic example of why, when drugs are in, sense and accountability go out. You were attacking not only people (but) animals and property.”
Scott-Mills received a 12-month jail sentence but will serve less than half of that behind bars before being released on prison licence.
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