UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON VICTIM’S FACE AND NECK

A DRUNKEN racist thug glassed a stranger in the face and neck because of the colour of his skin.

Stephen Marriner wounded his victim in a shocking and “completely unprovoked” attack with a pint glass.

The attack in Sunderland was followed a “disturbing and abhorrently racist” rant at police after his arrest, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

The victim needed three stitches to a wound on his eyebrow and four stitches to a wound on his neck after the violence in the early hours of September 23 last year.

Marriner, 30, of Aldenham Tower, Lakeside Village Sunderland, who says he is not racist, admitted unlawful wounding and has been jailed for 22 months.

Judge Tim Gittins told him: “It is clear from what you said to the police in your foul-mouthed rant following your arrest that a considerable part of the motive of your attack was the colour of that young man’s skin.

“I say that because your abuse was aimed at his nationality, which you got wholly wrong.”

Judge Gittins said the rest of Marriner’s “rant” was “disturbingly and abhorrently racist”.

The court heard Marriner said he has friends and family of “mixed backgrounds” and is not racist but the judge told him: “You may well have, but when you have had too much to drink, the truth often comes out and it came out of your mouth that night and demonstrated precisely why you approached that young man and attacked him.

“It was wholly unprovoked, he was wholly innocent.

“Your racist views were wholly abhorrent and wrong.”

Judge Gittins said he believed the attack would not have happened if Marriner had not had alcohol and told the defendant to “stop drinking”.

The judge said the victim was hit in an “extremely vulnerable” part of his body, the face and neck and that Marriner as fortunate not to have killed him.

The court heard the victim and his family were “distraught” by what happened and he remains apprehensive about being in public, having been “targeted because of his skin colour”.

But the court heard he has remained in the UK to complete his studies and has had counselling and therapy through his university.

Lee Fish, defending Marriner, said: “There is no excuse for the defendant’s behaviour that night. His behaviour was almost certainly caused by the amount of alcohol he had consumed that day.”

Mr Fish said Marriner behaved “entirely out of character” and the words were said in the “heat of the moment”.