Two men set to be sentenced after filming shocking abuse of elderly people in Lowestoft and Gorleston

Ipswich Crown Court, where the two men will be sentenced next month

Two men who hoped to make money out of filming elderly people being verbally abused are to be sentenced in January.

Ian Hatwell was filmed by Scott King as he went up to elderly people and swore at them and blew an airhorn in their faces.

The elderly victims were said to have been shocked and sickened by the abuse they suffered at the hands of Hatwell as he was filmed by King.

Today, both men pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court to using threatening behaviour and sentence was adjourned until January 12 to allow a pre-sentence report to be prepared on King and for the film footage to be seen by the sentencing judge.

At an earlier hearing, Lowestoft Magistrates heard that Hatwell, 31, of Compass Street, Lowestoft, and Scott King, 29, of Clarkson Road, Norwich, targeted elderly victims in 2011 to make a DVD of their reactions as a quick way to make money.

Their crimes came to light after officers found the DVD, which had 16 minutes of footage of mainly Hatwell abusing victims as King drove him around in a car and recorded him on camera.

A laptop computer was then found with further shocking images.

The images showed Hatwell going up to elderly people in the street and abusing them, knocking on people’s doors and blowing an airhorn straight into occupants faces, setting off a rape alarm in Tesco and throwing liquid into an elderly person’s face,

One image shows an elderly woman in Kessingland being abused and told “to have a short life”.
A victim statement said the woman “felt sick at what she had been called”.

Another victim, identified by police, was a security guard at the Pontins holiday centre in Pakefield who had a hearing aid and was seen having an airhorn blown into his face as he was filmed.

The incident left the man “shocked”.

A third victim was seen to have liquid thrown at him as he was working on a wall in Florence Road, Pakefield.

The court was told PC Kevin Durrant had investigated the images and he had found the footage “completely abhorrent”.  (Read more)

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Two men set to be sentenced after filming shocking abuse of elderly people in Lowestoft and Gorleston