Five years jail for man who slashed stranger in nightclub

Craig Brunie had got in with the wrong crowd after moving from Skegness to Warrington and on a night out with some of them he was appallingly encouraged to stab someone.

CCTV footage from the club, Block 1 on Bold Street in the town, was played to Liverpool Crown Court and the judge said that while the “whole thing was over very rapidly you managed to cause a very serious injury with a single blow.”

Brunie, 21, who was arrested nearly three months later in Shrewsbury after he was circulated as wanted by police, pleaded guilty to wounding Connor Byron with intent and possessing a bladed article in a public place.

Jailing him for five years Judge Thomas Teague, QC, said that the background to the incident on March 23 last year was that the 22-year-old victim was seeing a former girlfriend of one of Brunie’s associates.

He said: “I have seen the photographs of the injury which are horrific and not surprisingly have left a significant scar.”

The judge pointed out that the defendant, who now lives in Rumbold Lane, Wainfleet, was the subject of a caution for possessing an offensive weapon and using violence to enter licensed premises at the time of the incident.

He said he would have given him five and a half years but for the Court of Appeal guidance to reflect the conditions in prison during the current pandemic.

Simon Duncan, prosecuting, said that while the nature of the weapon was not known he clearly had a blade of some sort with him in a night club.

In an impact statement, Mr Byron told how he had suffered a 15 cm laceration to his left cheek and has been left with a large scar and numbness the area.

He had had trouble sleeping for six months and now suffers from cysts on his tongue, which he never had previously.

He was off work for a month, which affected him financially, and even people he does not know ask him about the injury. He now rarely goes out in the town centre for fear of a similar ttack and the incident plays on his mind and has changed his day to day life.

Michael Bagley, defending, said that Brunie came from Sheffield and did not have a good upbringing, with his father in and out of jail and developing paranoid schizophrenia and his mum turning to drink.

He moved to Warrington from Skegness, where he had been living with his dad and worked on a market, after getting in with a crowd of lads from Liverpool. On the night of the incident he was encouraged to stab someone and did so wanting to improve his status with the group.

“It was a reprehensible act which he regrets,” said Mr Bagley, who added he is remorseful and apologetic.

He said references showed that Brunie, who now has a partner and baby, was “a polite and good young man who has done a very bad thing in order to fit in while under the influence of others.”