Vegetarian threatened with knife by his brother for not eating meat
A man who threatened his vegetarian brother with a knife because he would not eat meat has been jailed.
Ricky Ayris, 33, held the weapon as he mocked Callum Hodges, 24, when he returned home and started cooking the veggie meal. Ayris shouted: ‘You should eat meat to get your vitamins.’
Prosecutor William Bebb said: ‘The victim was preparing food in the kitchen. The defendant told him “You think you’re so hard.”
‘He then grabbed hold of a six or seven-inch kitchen knife from a block and said, “You’re not so big now. What are you going to do?”
‘Mr Hodge described his brother as being at arms length from him with the blade pointed towards him and the defendant bearing down on him.’
Callum managed to escape their mum’s house in Caldicot, South Wales, and neighbours called police.
A court heard that at the time Ayris was drinking an average of 20 cans of beer every day but had cut back on alcohol.
He was jailed for six months and is subject to a three-year restraining order banning him from seeing his brother.
Campaigners have called for attacks on plant-based eaters to be labelled as hate crimes after a rise in incidents. Over the last five years, police have recorded 172 crimes against vegans.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.