Thug battered barmaid who offered him a hug
ACONVICTED killer beat up a barmaid, leaving her shortsighted, after she wished him Merry Christmas and went to hug him.
Benjamin Philips, 45, formerly of The Brookdale, Ainsdale, but then living in Sullington Drive, Netherley, had worked as a doorman at Rosies in Earle Street, Newton-leWillows.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that Sophie Moorhouse opened her arms to hug him at about 9pm on December 27 last year.
But in response, he said: “You want a Merry Christmas?” and punched her to the face, knocking her to the floor.
The bouncer kicked and stamped on his defenceless victim in a horrifying assault captured on CCTV.
Paul Blasbery, prosecuting, said: “He was trying to grab glasses out of a nearby glass washer to smash them onto the victim’s head.
“But he kept dropping them and knocking them over. She was of the firm belief he intended to smash them into her face.
“It may well have been, thankfully for Miss Moorhouse, the glasses were wet and he couldn’t get a proper grip on them.”
Philips told his bloodied victim “don’t text my bird again” before fleeing the scene.
Mr Blasbery said: “She has no idea why Mr Phillips has made that comment. She says she doesn’t know anything about his family, anything about his partner and she hadn’t been texting anyone.”
There was no evidence to support his claim, but Judge Robert Trevor-Jones said he would sentence Philips on the basis “he certainly thought, maybe mistakenly, that she had been responsible for communications”.
Philips rang his victim the next day and said: “Tell your family to stop asking for my second name, you f***ing grass. You will f***ing see what happens.”
Miss Moorhouse, who went for a CT scan, described being in “agony”, with severe bruising to her right eye, face, head and back.
Mr Blasbery said the mum still has short-sightedness and blurred vision in her right eye, but doctors do not believe it will be permanent.
She was so badly bruised she did not want her son to see her for two weeks and endured nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks.
It even hurt to put her head on a pillow and she was “a shadow of her former self”.
Philips admitted attempted wounding with intent and witness intimidation.
He was previously jailed for five years after he accidentally shot his friend John Austin, 34, dead on April 25, 2010, firing what he thought was an unloaded semi-automatic pistol at Mr Austin at the victim’s Coventry home.
Andrew Fitzpatrick, defending, yesterday said: “Mr Philips recognises this was a cowardly and shameful attack and is ashamed of what he has done. Mercifully, the injuries inflicted are not life threatening, grave as they are.
“Mr Philips himself can’t bear to look at the footage, so ashamed is he.”
The barrister said killing his friend had a “profound effect” on Philips and he had “never been able to get over it”.
He had “periodic but not sustained assistance” from community psychiatric services “but clearly not enough”.
He said Philips’s girlfriend, with whom he has a four-year-old son, was standing by him and in court to lend her support.
The judge jailed Philips for six years and two months and imposed a five-year restraining order to protect Miss Moorhouse.
Philips, of Sullington Drive, Netherley, smirked at the victim as he was sent down and gave a thumbs-up to his girlfriend.