A mother whose son had left her with a heavily-bloodied head said it made her feel ‘so sad’ when she thought about how drugs had changed him.
Haroon Sarwar’s mother was said to have been funding her son’s heroin habit – worth up to £250-a-day – to prevent him funding it through crime.
The 43-year-old was said to have been under the influence when, having locked himself out of the Oxford house he shared with his mother, he clambered up the side of the property and broke in through an open window.
Her son falsely claimed that keys left on the side were his, then ‘set about’ his 65-year-old mum in her bedroom, prosecutor Charles Digby told Oxford Crown Court on Friday morning.
The attack took place on May 28 this year.
Judge Maria Lamb adjourned the case for the preparation of medical reports after defence barrister Alice Aubrey-Fletcher said her client suffered from both physical and mental health complaints.
“On the face of it, he is facing a significant sentence of immediate custody,” the judge warned.
“I can see some of what is said about prison [by] the writer of the pre-sentence report and the view of the attitude that [the defendant] takes and whether it is attributable to drugs or whether it is attributable to some other aspects, potentially that may be explained by the medical condition.
“What it comes to is I am going to adjourn this sentence to allow for a psychiatric report.”
Sarwar, of Cowley Road, Oxford, will return to court for sentence on November 18. He pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court in May to causing his mother actual bodily harm.
Earlier, Mr Digby said that police had been called to the mother’s house after she was forced to use a suitcase to barricade herself in a room in order to protect herself from her son’s attack.
When they arrived, the officers found the victim in what one constable described as a state of ‘discombobulation’. There was blood 'pouring from the right side of her head'.
Sarwar was arrested but refused to leave his cell to be interviewed. Officers quizzed him through the cell hatch, although he would not answer any questions.
In a victim personal statement, the mother said that before the drugs her son had been a ‘very intelligent boy and a good sportsman’.
“It makes me so sad to think of the way he has changed,” she said. She added that she did not want to him go to prison.
Mr Digby said the defendant’s record for violence began in 1995 when he was a juvenile. He had previously been imprisoned for attacking his mother.
Read more from this author
This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.
To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk
Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward