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The woman he assaulted said her eye was left ‘fully black and blue’ following the incident, prosecutor Callum Stevens told Minshull Street Crown Court on Tuesday afternoon (July 7, 2026). He argued the stones he threw at the woman were a ‘weapon equivalent’, revealing that the defendant had two previous convictions for ‘dissimilar’ crimes.
Hock’s barrister Vanessa Thomson KC urged the judge to pass a ‘proportionate’ sentence.
Judge Baxter told Hock: “I do not accept you did not intend to throw stones at her. You completely lost your temper. You were in drink and became aggressive and threw stones in her direction injuring her face. That’s disgraceful behaviour.”
However, Jude Baxter said she took account of the time he had spent in custody while on remand and on a curfew and went on any prison sentence she could impose would be less than 12 months. “I do not see the real purpose of sending you to prison for such a short period of time,” she said.
The judge also noted Hock’s ‘addiction issues’ and said he had ‘limited insight’ into his crime.
Hock, from Leigh, had denied section 47 assault but he was convicted by a jury following a trial. He showed no reaction in the dock when he was handed an 18-month community order including 200 hours of unpaid work.
He was cleared of two counts of raping the woman. Following a three-week trial at Minshull Street Crown Court in May, he was cleared of two counts of rape; four counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm; assault by beating; and perverting the course of justice.
Jurors found him guilty of one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on a count of controlling or coercive behaviour. Prosecutors decided against a retrial on that charge.
The trial heard the woman told police Hock’s behaviour changed following ‘drink and drug binges’. He ‘had a problem with drink and drugs’ and ‘would not take no for an answer’, she said.
The woman alleged he was responsible for a series of physical attacks, the court heard. The jury heard that following Hock’s arrest, he called her and told her: “Just drop the charges.”
He was said to have added: “You can’t do this to me. My name will be in all the papers. All the stuff you’re saying… you’re lying.”
Giving evidence, Hock said during the incident in which he threw stones at the woman she was drunk and he had had two glasses of wine. “She was drunk, she was giddy,” he said.
“I just picked some gravel from the ground and threw them up. I didn’t intend to hurt her.” His barrister Vanessa Thomson KC asked: “Did you think when you grabbed these stones, did you think there was a risk of anybody getting hurt?”
“No,” Hock said. “I didn’t know the stones made contact with anyone.”
Asked how he felt at the time, he said: “I was all over the shop, I’d never done anything like that.” Hock told jurors that in another incident his accuser began to ‘scratch him and rip off his t-shirt’.
He said she had grabbed a ‘meat fork’ and ‘attacked him’ with it. During another alleged incident, the woman was said to have been ‘dragged backwards’ by the door of the car as Hock said ‘watch yourself’.
Source: Manchester Evening News
