A MAN with a history of violence has been jailed for two years after a court heard he hit a pub customer in the face with a glass, then kicked, punched and stamped on him while he was on the floor.
Terry Anthony Nicholas, 24, who has previous convictions for aggravated burglary and robbery, left his victim unconscious and one witness thinking he was dead.
Nicholas, of Bryn Awelon, Buckley, was due to go on trial on a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Craig Bartley and common assault on his partner Michelle Taylor, at the Potter’s Wheel pub in Buckley on May 21 last year.
He admitted an alternative charge of affray.
Judge Merfyn Hughes QC said it was a sustained attack in which he had used a glass and kicking, aggravated by his previous convictions for violence.
“This is so serious that it has to be immediate custody,” he said.
Paulinus Barnes, prosecuting, said Mr Bartley and Miss Taylor were in the Potter’s Wheel and Nicholas was also there with friends.
There was an argument and Nicholas and some of his friends were asked to leave and quieten down. When they were outside a barmaid asked them not to take glasses from a patio area and Nicholas was said to have verbally abused her.
Mr Bartley, the barmaid’s uncle, asked him not to speak to her like that. Nicholas approached where Mr Bartley was sitting and there was a scuffle partly captured on the pub CCTV and the defendant appeared to have been butted by Mr Bartley.
Nicholas’ girlfriend led him away but he returned alone with a pint glass in his hand which a witness said he smashed in the man’s face.
Mr Bartley fell to the floor where the CCTV showed Nicholas punching and kicking him, leaving him unconscious.
A witness later told police she thought he was dead.
Miss Taytor intervened but he grabbed her, pushed her and punched her in the face.
Arrested and interviewed, he claimed he had acted in self-defence and denied deliberately smashing the glass. He also denied kicking and stamping.
Mr Bartley was left with bruising and swelling to the right cheek and eye and a laceration to the back of the head.
Brian Treadwell, defending, said Nicholas had taken a pragmatic approach and had admitted affray.
He said the prosecution witnesses said one thing happened while the CCTV showed another.
His client had clearly been butted and the defendant responded to that.
It was his case that he came back, the complainant went at him again and the affray then followed from that point on, which he admitted.