Drug addict knifed man in neck after theft claims
ADRUG addict slashed a man on the neck, leaving him fighting for his life, after accusing him of stealing his drugs stash.
Richard Thomley attacked Simon Long with a craft knife, severing his internal jugular vein with an eightinch gash and causing nerve damage.
His victim, who is now permanently scarred, only survived thanks to neighbours and paramedics.
At Liverpool Crown Court, Thomley, 48, of Knowsley Road, Southport, admitted possession of a knife and wounding.
But he denied wounding with intent, suggesting that he acted in self defence and had not realised that he was carrying the weapon beforehand.
He was unanimously found guilty after a trial and last Thursday ( June 22) Judge Brian Cummings, QC, jailed him for 15 years.
The judge said: “When paramedics arrived they told the victim to allow them to assist him or he was going to die.
“You did nothing to assist in that. You simply slashed your victim’s neck and left him in the street.”
The court heard that the men lived in the same road and both went to a party at a flat nearby on January 7 this year. Simon Duncan, prosecuting, said that Thomley fell asleep in a hallway and Mr Long and another man carried him into a room and put him on a sofa.
Thomley woke and left, but later realised that his Diazepam tablets and money were missing, which he believed had been stolen, rather than having simply fallen out of his pocket.
He armed himself with the knife and he and another man confronted Mr Long as he was walking down the road at around 5pm the next day.
They cornered the victim and when he denied the theft and refused to go to the beach to talk, Thomley slashed him.
Thomley walked away as Mr Long realised blood was “spurting” from his neck, before collapsing outside his flat.
Neighbours stemmed the bleeding with towels and he was taken to hospital, where he received a blood transfusion and stitches.
Mr Long said that he was now “on edge all the time”, suffered from nightmares and did not have any feeling on the left side of his face.
He told the court: “I’m not perfect but I did not deserve what happened to me. “It was disgusting. “I’m angry that Thomley got tooled up with a knife for a packet of drugs that he actually dropped.
“He is a scumbag who deserves to be locked away for society’s sake, not just mine.”
Convicted cocaine and heroin dealer Thomley has 32 previous convictions for 92 offences.
In 2014 he was locked up for 22 months for aggravated vehicle taking and causing bodily harm by wanton and furious driving.
Mr Duncan said that in that case, Lancashire police officer Amanda Bond had seen him driving unusually on farmland and he gave her false details.
He reversed into her police car then tried to run her over – narrowly missing – before smashing into the car again when she got inside.
Mr Duncan said that the officer suffered a torn knee ligament in the crash and was still suffering from her injuries to this day.
Martyn Walsh, defending, said that Thomley’s girlfriend had died from pneumonia but he was initially arrested over her death and bailed by police.
He said that his client started carrying a knife, was “self-medicating” with Diazepam and cocaine, and had been in a “highly emotional state”.
Thomley told a probation officer he had “immense feelings of guilt” over the attack, but Judge Cummings said: “I don’t believe you.”
He told him he was lucky not to be receiving a 25-year minimum life sentence and imposed an indefinite restraining order.