Man rammed a tractor into home ‘after graves of relatives desecrated’

A man has been jailed after slamming a stolen tractor into a family home in revenge for the violation of his dad and brother’s graves.

Nathan Blagg, 28, was handed a prison sentence today after stealing the Massey Ferguson tractor and hay baler and driving them into a terraced family home in Middlesbrough.

The rage-fuelled attack happened in May following an ‘ongoing feud’ with his rival, Luke Lancaster.

The three-bedroom home on Priory Road ‘essentially had to be rebuilt’ after Blagg rammed the vehicle and the baler, stolen from North Yorkshire

farmer Ian Tate around nine miles away, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The tractor suffered £56,000 worth of damage while the £30,000 hay baler had to be written off.

While the terraced home was empty when Blagg deliberately drove the powerful vehicle into it, the man was ‘not aware of this or if those inside neighboring properties were home when the tractor was rammed,’ Detective Chief Inspector Dan Cook said.

The tractor almost burst through a party wall of a neighboring house, recorder Paul Reid said.

The family living in the property had been forced to move out of their home of 24 years because of previous attacks.

A man who lived there said: ‘We are a hard-working family and we don’t deserve to be put through this.’

The woman, who used to live in the home, said: ‘I don’t tell anyone where I live (now) for fear I and my family will be violently attacked.’

She has been left in a limbo over whether she would be able to get a mortgage or home insurance again.

Meanwhile, farmer Mr Tate, who had been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after the incident, said that ‘farming is hard enough without all this.’

The pair had come face to face in Middlesbrough town center on April 21, which saw Lancaster drive his car into Blagg, throwing him over the bonnet outside the Probation Service offices, according to the prosecutor.

Blagg insisted to police that any violence was in self-defense.

Moments before, he had seen ‘distressing footage’ shared on social media by Lancaster showing him urinating on the graves of Blagg’s father and brother, and kicking over a gravestone, Blagg’s defense lawyer Rod Hunt argued.

Blagg and his associates then concocted a plan and saw criminal damage to his house as a less serious option than physically attacking him, the court heard.

Recorder Reid acknowledged that Blagg had been provoked 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.’

Mr Hunt 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.’

Blagg admitted to affray in relation to the April 21 incident in Middlesbrough with Lancaster, who has been jailed for his role that day.

For the tractor incident, Blagg was jailed for seven years and two months, with two years on an extended license.

He was also banned from driving for seven years.

Five days after the tractor incident, Blagg stole a Jaguar and crashed it into a lamppost, which sent the car spinning 180 degrees, seriously injuring the driver and passenger.

But Blagg tried to drive the car away, even as paramedics attended, the court heard.

At the time, he was already disqualified from driving.

Blagg also admitted aggravated vehicle taking in relation to the Jaguar incident.

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