Evan Williams Sentenced to Three Years for Dog Walker Attack
Trainer Evan Williams has been jailed for three years after being found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent in an attack on 72-year-old dog walker Martin Dandridge.
Williams, a familiar figure in British racing circles, struck Dandridge with a hockey stick on an evening in December 2024, wrongly believing the pensioner to be a lamper – a poacher who uses lights at night. The assault left Dandridge with a broken arm.
Sentencing
Sentencing at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday morning, Recorder Angharad Price condemned the violence in stark terms.
“This was an appalling offence, causing serious injury,” she told Williams. “It is never acceptable to take the law into your own hands.”
The decision leaves a significant question mark over the future of Williams’ training operation. His barrister, David Elias KC, laid out the stark reality for the court.
“If he isn’t there, there is no business,” Elias said, underlining how closely the yard’s fortunes are tied to its long-time trainer.
After Williams’ conviction last month, his training licence was transferred into the name of his wife, Cath. On paper, that move kept the operation alive. In practice, Elias suggested, the situation is far more fragile.
“It doesn’t matter in whose name the licence is,” he argued in mitigation, urging the judge to consider a suspended sentence. “It is Evan Williams who brings the racing knowledge and no one else.”
The defence leaned heavily on Williams’ standing within the racing community. Elias described “an unprecedented number of testimonials”, telling the court that Williams’ solicitors had received 570 character references, with more still arriving.
Of those, 102 were formally submitted to the court and read by Recorder Price ahead of the hearing, a volume that underlined both Williams’ reputation in the sport and the depth of feeling among owners, colleagues and supporters.
They were not enough to keep him out of prison.
Williams now begins a three-year custodial sentence, his professional future uncertain and his training empire balanced on a knife-edge while Cath Williams holds the licence and the industry waits to see whether the yard can function without the man who built it.
