A ‘RESPECTABLE young man’ who attacked another customer in a Rugby night club has been ordered to pay £1,000 compensation to his victim, who needed seven stitches.
Stuart Mitchell pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to maliciously wounding the other man during an incident in Zinc night club in April last year.
Mitchell, 26, of Woodcote Avenue, Nuneaton, was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for 12 months.
Judge Sylvia de Bertodano also ordered him to pay £1,000 compensation to his victim Luke Bayliss and £600 costs.
Prosecutor Richard Franck said that on April 14 last year Mr Bayliss was at Zinc night club in High Street, Rugby, where he said he was ‘seven out of ten drunk,’ at around 4am.
And he later told the police all he could recall was suddenly being knocked to the floor and realising he had been hit.
Mr Franck said a CCTV recording appeared to show Mitchell kicking out towards him, but Judge de Berodano commented: “All that can be said is he aimed a foot in his direction, but we can’t say it landed.”
His cousin helped him up, and they left the club and made their way to a McDonalds where there was a further confrontation between him and Mitchell, and the police were called.
The assault in Zinc had left him with a cut to his left eye for which he then went to hospital where he had to have seven stitches in the wound which has left him with a permanent scar.
Mitchell was pointed out to the police outside McDonalds, and tried to run away but was caught and arrested.
When he was interviewed Mitchell, who said he had drunk six pints and ‘lots of vodka,’ told the police he had known Mr Bayliss for a couple of years, and they had had ‘a few problems.’
He said he had seen Mr Bayliss hovering around and had thrown two punches, and that Mr Bayliss fell to the floor and could have cut himself by hitting his head on some furniture.
Charles Crinion, defending, said: “He felt frightened, and he lashed out. There is clearly an exchange of words beforehand, and there are two punches.”
Mr Crinion said Mitchell works for a transport company, working long shifts for three days and then three days off, and supports his partner, who is at university, and his step-daughter, and they have a child on the way.
Sentencing Mitchell, Judge de Bertodano told him: “I really don’t expect to see respectable young men like you in this court for such an offence.
“You are here because of something that happened over a year ago now when you and Mr Bayliss were at Zinc night club in the early hours of the morning.
“Mr Bayliss was hit by you and knocked to the floor. He can’t remember much about it, but what he got was a cut to his eye, a really nasty cut which required seven stitches.
“It is not your fault it is over a year since this incident, and it seems to me it is totally out of character for you to have behaved in this way.”
