A man who attacked a youth with a baseball bat and assaulted a woman in the same incident has been remanded in custody by a judge.

Terry Caven, of Philips Close, Melksham, known to friends as TJ, had been on trial after pleading not guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm, common assault and having an offensive weapon.

But a jury at Swindon Crown Court took just over an hour to convict the 23-year-old on all three charges.

Caven launched the violent attack in Ruskin Avenue on January 14, after his wife’s family had gathered at her mum’s home in Thackeray Crescent for a birthday celebration – although he denied being there.

Caven went to ‘sort out’ a group of youths after hearing that a girlfriend of one of his relatives was outside with them, the jury was told.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, said he was then pushed over by a girl and her boyfriend then stood up to him, so he went inside to get the bat. He was then seen back in Ruskin Avenue at about 9pm waving the weapon about and assaulting the young man before running off.

The common assault charge related to him slapping and spitting at a woman during the fracas.

Caven was arrested the following morning at his wife’s house in Great Cheverell.

He said he had been miles away at her house when the incident took place in Melksham and claimed the people who thought they had seen him were mistaken.

Giving evidence, his sister-in-law Charlotte Taylor, 27, said the person the witnesses thought was Caven may have been her.

Taylor, who is a pregnant single mother, told the jury that, while making her way to the party, a man leapt out of a car and hit her with a baseball bat and a woman also came at her, but she had used her Tae Kwon-Do skills to fight her off and punched her in the face.

Caven was convicted of all charges and Judge Douglas Field remanded him in custody until November 9 to allow the probation service time to compile a pre-sentence report.