A BUNGLING debt collector left pensioners terrified after he went to their homes in the middle of the night armed with two knuckledusters.
Jonathan Bowskill smashed the patio windows of a widow’s house in Dawlish and demanded £800 from another pensioner while threatening a violent attack.
He went to four different houses in the town on two different occasions but got the wrong address every time.
His drunken antics left the victims crying and shaking in fear and utterly bewildered because they had no idea what he was talking about.
Bowskill told some he was chasing an £800 debt and others he was looking for someone called Rudi, who he claimed had robbed him.
He was filmed wearing a knuckleduster by two doorbell cameras and police later seized four of the weapons from his house nearby.
Officers had no trouble tracing him because he gave his address to one of the victims in the mistaken belief that they could pass on a message to ‘Rudi’.
He was liable to a mandatory six months jail term because of a previous conviction for a weapons offence, but a Judge at Exeter Crown Court decided not to impose it because the earlier case was 20 years ago.
Bowskill, aged 52, of Park Road, Dawlish, admitted two counts of having an offensive weapon and one of criminal damage and was curfewed for six weeks and ordered to undertake 44 days of rehabilitation activities.
Judge David Evans told him he was taking into account that he has already spent more than two months on remand in prison and has issues with his mental health.
He told him: ‘You were intoxicated and went to the wrong addresses, waking people up and scaring them in their homes. You uttered threats while wearing knuckledusters.’
Mr Nigel Wraith, prosecuting, said Bowskill’s first offence happened at the home of a recently widowed woman in Dawlish on December 16. He woke her at 5am by banging on her door and ringing her doorbell.
She heard him shouting something about drugs and then saw he had moved into her back garden, where he smashed her patio doors with a plant pot before leaving.
His next three uninvited visits happened in the early hours of December 31 in the Longlands and Meadow Rise areas. He started at the home of a pensioner who lived with her husband, who suffers from dementia.
Bowskill woke the householder by ringing the bell, hammering on the door and demanding payment of a £800 debt. He shouted ‘I’ve got two knuckledusters, open the door or I will kick your head in’.
The victim later told police she was terrified, shaking and had never been subjected to anything like this in the 21 years she had lived at the house.
Her son was staying over the festive period and persuaded Bowskill he had the wrong house, causing him to move on to make more threats at two others in Longlands.
He was filmed wearing at least one knuckleduster while demanding to be told where to find Rudi, who he said he planned to attack and leave with a broken nose or cheek bone.
All the victims called the police and told police they were very frightened and confused.
Police arrested Bowskill at his home, where they recovered two knuckledusters from the ground floor and two more from his bedroom.
He said he had wanted to get word around the neighbourhood that he was looking for Rudi. He told officers he had a right to keep weapons at his home, regardless of what the law says.
Mr Martin Salloway, defending, said Bowskill has stayed out of trouble for five years and has not been involved with weapons for more than 20 years.
He has mental health issues and a probation pre-sentence report had suggested he was suitable for a programme requirement and rehabilitation activities to help him with mental health issues.
He was also able to wear an electronic tag despite having had skin grafts on one leg in the past.