Mugger who slashed man across the face with machete on Leeds street told: 'You think life is cheap'
A mugger slashed a man across the face with a machete as he tried to wrestle his bag from him.
Lamin Kuyateh later went on to stab two other victims in a city-centre bar. He was jailed at Leeds Crown Court this week.
Passing sentence, fed-up Judge Richard Mansell KC told that such knife attacks have become “depressingly common” and told the 22-year-old: “People like you think that life is cheap.”
Kuyateh targeted the first victim on Cambrian Terrace in Holbeck on the afternoon of February 21, 2023, and tried to grab his bag from him.
They struggled but an accomplice of Kuyateh then passed him the large machete knife, which he used to slash the man across the face, prosecutor Stephen Littlewood told the court.
He made off with the bag pursued by the victim, but then dropped it. The victim suffered a deep laceration to his cheek and lost three teeth. He has been left with a permanent scar.
Kuyateh, of Jenkinson Lawn, Holbeck, was arrested two weeks later but gave a no-comment interview.
But less than two months later and while on bail, he attacked two men in Revs on Call Lane.
Clearly intoxicated he got into an argument in the early hours of April 10, 2023 and stabbed one in the side of his body and the other in the thigh.
Although the weapon was never recovered, one of the victims suffered a one-inch wound to his thigh.
Kuyateh then left and went into the nearby Brooklyn Bar, but the police were called to the scene and he was arrested.
He called one female officer a “f***** b****”, refused to go quietly and kicked the police van as they tried to take him away.
He eventually admitted Section 18 GBH with intent and possession of an offensive weapon from the first incident, and two counts of ABH, obstructing police and criminal damage for the second.
Mitigating, Jazmine Lee said Kuyateh was now a “very different man” from who he was in 2023 and had not been in trouble since.
She said he had the support of his mother who was “distraught” by his actions.
Judge Richard Mansell KC jailed Kuyateh for five years.