Bangor student spared jail after meat cleaver attack on ‘peacemaker’

AUNIVERSITY student who struck a fellow scholar on the wrist with a meat cleaver has been spared jail.

Xing Sheng Li argued he was acting in self-defence after he and his friends were subjected to racial abuse by other Bangor University students in a late night incident last October.

The 24-year-old Chinese national, formerly of Sackville Road, Bangor, and Marsh Wall, London, was unaware his victim was trying to act as a peacemaker.

During the fracas, he admitted using a frying pan to lash out at the students before picking up the meat cleaver.

He admitted wounding Aiden Clark when he appeared at Caernarfon Crown Court.

Currently studying for a masters degree at Durham University, Li was handed a 12-month prison term which was suspended for 12 months.

Sentencing, Judge Huw Rees, said: “This was an extremely disgraceful incident. It is a privilege to be a student and you and others involved (in this incident) have abused that privilege.”

He told Li, who has a reprimand for battery from 2009, to put the matter behind him.

“I accept there was considerable provocation but you dealt with it in a highly inappropriate manner by arming yourself with that meat cleaver,” the judge added.

Mathew Curtis, defending, said Li was aware of the seriousness of his position but argued he had acted in self-defence. His plea of guilty showed he was remorseful the lawyer added.

The court heard Li and other Chinese students were in a kitchen of their accommodation late on October 20 last year when a group of other students, not of their nationality, started hurling taunts and abuse from outside.

The group reacted by arguing from inside the building and during the incident a bottle of Prosecco was thrown from the kitchen.

Li was said to have picked up a frying pan and wielded it from the window.

CCTV footage showed Mr Clark trying to calm the group outside down and went up to the window but was struck on the left wrist by Li who had, by then, picked up the meat cleaver.

Anna Price, prosecuting, said Mr Clark suffered a serious injury and later underwent treatment in hospital.

In a Victim Personal Statement , summarised in court, she said he continued to suffer physical and psychological effects of the incident nearly a year after the incident.

“His left wrist is still weak and he has limited feeling and numbness and is still wearing strapping. He has been told by physiotherapists there is no guarantee he might regain full feeling in the hand,” she said.