Play sport again’
BEHIND BARS FOR BRUTAL ATTACK
friend. The assault victim was helped away by his friends and taken by ambulance to hospital where it was found he had two fractures to the front of his skull, more fractures to his left eye socket and cheekbone, a bleed on the brain and an air cavity on the brain.
He was in hospital for nine days, but still needs to undergo further surgery to the skull fractures, and his vision is still not back to normal.
As a result of his injuries he was unable to complete a one-year internship or a work project he had been working on, and doctors have advised him that he cannot risk playing football or any other contact sport for the rest of his life.
Mr Liddiard added that Abdul had a record for violence and in 2010 had been jailed for four years and eight months for grievous bodily harm with intent after he attacked a man in a bar in Weston-Super-Mare, breaking his jaw and leaving the imprint of his trainer on the victim’s neck.
Matthew Hardyman, defending, said that although there was no justification for the attack, Abdul had been struggling to cope with the loss of his younger brother who died after falling down a flight of stairs, and had been drinking too much because of that.
He said Abdul, who knew he was facing a lengthy sentence, regretted what he did and “says this isn’t the man I was hoping to be”, and that he had hoped he had put such behaviour behind him.
Jailing Abdul, Deputy Judge Richard Griffith-Jones told him: “This is a grave offence. It was a hard kick from a powerful man to a man who was vulnerable after you had taken his legs from under him.
“The damage you did was enormous. In one sense, not only was he lucky to live, you were lucky he lived, because the only question would have been whether it was murder or manslaughter.
“That this is from someone whose pattern of offending and previous convictions for causing grievous bodily harm with intent demonstrates to me that you are a danger.”