Acid attacker loses jail term appeal

The former boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne Mccann has lost a challenge against his 20-year jail sentence for carrying out an acid attack in a packed nightclub.

Arthur Collins hurled the corrosive substance over a crowd on the dance floor at Mangle E8 in Dalston, east London, in what a judge described as a “despicable act”.

Collins, of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, now 26, was sentenced at London’s Wood Green Crown Court in December by Judge Noel Lucas.

Three judges at the Court of Appeal in London rejected his bid for a sentence reduction at a hearing yesterday.

Announcing the decision, Lord Justice Simon said: “We accept that this was a severe sentence, but these were exceptionally serious offences and the severe sentence was fully justified.”

Some 16 people suffered chemical burn injuries and three people were temporarily blinded in the attack. Collins, the father of Ms Mccann’s baby daughter Sunday, told his trial he did not know the bottle contained acid. He claimed he believed it contained a liquid date rape drug that he had snatched from two men after overhearing them planning to spike a girl’s drink.

But a jury convicted him of five counts of grievous bodily harm with intent and nine counts of actual bodily harm.

Collins told his trial he had been out celebrating the news of Ms Mccann’s pregnancy.