A FORMER soldier who jumped bail part-way through his trial for an alleged machete attack has been cleared of all the charges against him.

Aron Barton, who saw service in Northern Ireland, was arrested from his mother’s home after failing to turn up at Bradford Crown Court on Friday morning.

Barton, 28, of Bolton Road, Bradford, was remanded in custody until the jury found him not guilty of wounding Louis Waddington with intent to do him grievous bodily harm in St John Street, Brighouse, on August 13 last year.

He was also acquitted of the alternative lesser offence of unlawful wounding, threatening Mr Waddington and James Casey with a crossbow and assaulting his former girlfriend, Shonagh Waddington, by beating her.

The jury had been told that Mr Waddington suffered an extensive injury to his right hand and that his right leg was hacked to the bone with a machete or Samurai sword when violence erupted in a residential area on a Sunday afternoon.

Barton, who served in the Royal Logistic Corps before taking up employment as a sign fitter and wagon driver, said he had no weapons with him when he drove to the street and that he fled on foot after his friend was stabbed in the leg.

He said his car had earlier been damaged with a baseball bat after members of Miss Waddington’s family wrongly accused him of assaulting her by kicking her on the legs when she called at his home that morning.

The bonnet was dented and the windscreen smashed. He was still paying for the vehicle and wanted the money to repair it.

Barton pleaded guilty on Tuesday to breaching his bail by failing to attend court.

His barrister, David Hall, said: “It was the act of an immature and frightened man.”

His client had made no attempt to escape but was apprehended at his mother’s address in Bradford.

Mr Hall said Barton, who had no previous convictions, was a hardworking man and keen to return to the army.

He had spent 440 days on a qualifying curfew while awaiting trial.

“Maybe offer him more mercy than he deserves,” Mr Hall said.

Judge David Hatton QC fined Barton £500 to be paid within three months.

He said that although the trial had been delayed, it had not been derailed because it had carried on in Barton’s absence.

“The course of justice was not obstructed or perverted because the trial continued,” the judge said.