Angler threatened landowner with grisly plotline from The Godfather

Angler threatened millionaire landowner and his family with grisly plotline from The Godfather movie after he was caught poaching trout at their £1.2m lakeside farm

• Paul Darlington warned Thomas Canning he would wake up with donkey’s head
• The Godfather, 1972, features the severed head of a prized racing horse in a bed

An angler used a grisly plotline from The Godfather to threaten a wealthy landowner and his family after he was caught poaching trout at their £1.2million lakeside farm.

Paul Darlington, 36, warned Thomas Canning he would wake up with a donkey’s head in his bed after he was escorted from the Cheshire farm for illegally fishing rainbow trout.

Darlington, from Ellesmere Port, was later arrested but denied wrongdoing, claiming he had been threatened first. 

During their verbal exchange, Darlington told Mr Canning: ‘Thank you for walking us around the farm, we now know the layout. We know what you have got. 

‘We will come back and break in and we will kill the kids and let you watch.’

Paul Darlington, 36, (pictured) warned Thomas Canning he would wake up with a donkey’s head in his bed after he was escorted from a farm for illegally fishing rainbow trout

He added: ‘Could you not have just been nice? We know that you have got donkeys. We will come back in the night and kill them. Have you ever woken up with a donkey’s head in your bed?’

In the 1972 movie The Godfather, crime family boss Vito ‘Don’ Corleone sends his consigliere to persuade a movie producer to offer his godson a role in his latest film. 

But when the studio boss refuses and makes a bunch of anti-Italian slurs in the process, he finds the severed head of his prized racing horse in his bed the following morning. 

Father-of-two Mr Canning and his wife Katherine – who live at a 17 acre former fishery in a village near Chester – are believed to have been left in fear by the incident. 

Darlington had previous convictions for assault, had been the subject of an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) when he was a teenager and had previously been jailed for stamping on a man’s head outside a nightclub.

At Chester magistrates court, Darlington was ordered to pay £200 compensation to Mr and Mrs Canning after he admitted three charges of using threatening behaviour. He was also ordered to pay £100 damages to the couple’s son Sean.

Father-of-two Mr Canning and his wife Katherine – who live at a 17 acre former fishery in the village of Mickle Trafford, Cheshire – are believed to have been left in fear by the incident. Pictured: The lake where the incident happened 

Darlington was originally charged with offences of making threats to kill, making threats to cause damage and of unlawfully attempting to take fish – but the charges were all withdrawn.

The incident occurred on July 5, 2022 after Darlington and a friend were seen lurking around one of the lakes in the private grounds. 

Lisa McGuire, prosecuting, said: ‘Thomas and Katherine Canning are the owners of the land which was previously used for open fishing but it is now private property. Thomas was walking around the lake when he saw the defendant and an unknown at the time male walking with fishing equipment and he called the police.

‘The incident escalated and Thomas attempted to walk the males off the land and at the exit, Katherine and Sean were at the gate. But the defendant then said to Sean ”What are you staring at? I will smash your face in”. 

‘The other male tried to walk across the field but Thomas blocked his way. They put their fishing equipment down and the situation escalated further. The defendant said to Thomas: ”Is this your son? He is dead if he leaves here. We have got his picture. If he steps off the farm we will kill him.”

Miss McGuire added: ‘The defendant has four previous convictions for five offences. He was last before the court on March 2, 2018, for the offence of battery. He received a community order. In terms of sentencing guidelines the Crown say the starting point is a high-level community order with a range of low-level community order to 26 weeks in custody.’ 

The Godfather, 1972, features the severed head of a prized racing horse in a bed

Miss McGuire said that there were victim statements made by Katherine and Thomas, but Katherine requested that her statement was not read out in court. Thomas’s statement was not supplied.

Darlington, who was unrepresented, told the hearing: ‘I obviously acted wrong. I admitted I did wrong. I was not guilty at first. I was threatened first, that’s what my thing was.’ 

He was also ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and 20 days of rehabilitative activity. 

Darlington was handed a five-year restraining order not to contact the three members of the Canning family named in the charges or enter their farm, and ordered to pay £514 in costs and victim surcharge.

District Judge Jack McGarva told him: ‘The threats made were vile in my view and.they showed great arrogance on your part. At the end of the day this was somewhere you had to pay to go, not somewhere you can walk to and do what you want.

‘The threats were particularly unpleasant, particularly the threats to harm one of their pets and you then threatened the person. I have not seen the victim statement, but the threats would have been frightening and have lasting effects on them.’

It later emerged director of The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola refused to use a fake horse’s head for the scene so crew members found a live one that was scheduled to die at a dog-food manufacturer. 

The infamous scene was filmed when the horse’s head arrived at the set packed in dry ice and is now a common cultural reference – and even a punch line in sitcoms.

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