Man who went on run after stabbing fails in court appeal

A THUG who went on the run for four years after committing a nearfatal stabbing in Rugby has had his sentence backed by top judges.

Raivo Rungevics, 25, severed the main artery in his victim’s arm in the January 2012 attack, which followed a row at a party.

Rungevics, then of Bridget Street, was arrested but justice was delayed after he failed to answer bail.

He was traced to Latvia four years later and sent back to the UK under a European arrest warrant.

He pleaded guilty to wounding and breaching bail at Warwick Crown Court and was jailed for a total of 40 months in March.

On Thursday at London’s Appeal Court, Judge Martyn Zeidman QC heard him claim that he had been treated too harshly.

But the judge, sitting with Lord Justice Treacy and Mrs Justice May, heard the victim of the attack was in real danger of bleeding to death.

His life was only saved because police officers happened to be nearby and swiftly applied a tourniquet to stem the gush of blood from the wound in his upper arm.

“By the time paramedics arrived he had no discernible pulse. It is obvious that he could have died,” said Judge Zeidman.

“The wound has caused permanent disability. It is only because police officers were on the scene that his life was saved.”

Lawyers for Rungevics argued he deserved more credit for pleading guilty to the wounding offence.

He had initially been charged with the more serious crime of wounding with intent, but his plea to the lesser offence was accepted by prosecutors.

But Judge Zeidman told Rungevics: “To get anything like full credit for his guilty plea, it should have been tendered in 2012, not four years later.

“He could have no cause for complaint and, in our view, a consecutive sentence of nine months for the Bail Act offence was entirely unobjectionable.

“This appeal fails.”