Drunk hurled bottle into man's face during Wakefield pub fracas
A drunken thug threw a bottle into a man’s face after an argument broke out in a pub.
Michael Conway was spared custody at Leeds Crown Court this week, but the judge told him he was lucky it did not blind the man.
It was heard that the victim had been with his partner and friends in The George & Dragon in Hemsworth on the night of May 18 last year.
He knew 41-year-old Conway having both lived in the area, prosecutor Zanisha Herbert said.
An altercation broke out involving Conway and another group in the back room of the Cross Hill pub where people were dancing.
A female made a complaint about Conway to staff and the music was turned off and the lights switched on.
It was then that the victim made a comment to Conway about him spoiling the night for everyone.
Conway picked up the bottle and threw it, hitting the man in the face, causing the laceration and leaving him bleeding heavily. Conway then left the pub.
The man needed hospital treatment where the wound was glued shut.
Conway, of Hilmian Way, Hemsworth, was arrested the next day. He gave a largely no-comment interview but appeared to shrug off the incident with a flippant comment about “being locked up for throwing a bottle”.
He was charged with causing Section 18 GBH with intent, but later admitted the lesser charge of Section 20 GBH without intent, which was accepted by the Crown.
He has two previous convictions from 2013 for battery and a public order offence.
Mitigating, John Bottomley said Conway was now “ashamed of his actions” but said he could remember little of the incident due to his drunkenness.
He said Conway had a troubled childhood that left him with mental health issues.
Judge Roger Thomas KC warned Conway: “You could have been in big trouble because throwing a bottle in a pub - who knows where it’s going to land.
“An inch or so either way and it could have blinded him.”
Judge Thomas conceded that Conway may have been locked up in the past for the assault, but said there was now a “different attitude”.
Instead, he gave him six months’ jail, suspended for 18 months, 15 rehabilitation days with probation and a 90-day electronic-tag alcohol abstinence requirement.
The tag is capable of detecting even the tiniest amount of alcohol entering the body, and if triggered, will see Conway brought back before the courts.