Leamington man jailed for almost ten years after smashing glass into another man's face while he was under investigation for burglary

Ryan Coulson had originally pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to the burglary and to wounding his glassing victim with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm.

But at subsequent hearings at the court he changed his pleas to guilty and also admitted a further burglary and the thefts of cars from the burgled houses.

Coulson, 20, of Craig Close, Leamington, who also asked for three more burglaries and an attempted burglary to be taken into consideration, was jailed for nine years and ten months.

Prosecutor Ian Windridge said that in November 2018 a couple left their home in Lancaster Way, Whitnash, locked and secure when they went to bed on a Saturday night.

The man was woken at 3.15 the following morning by a text message from his bank querying the use of one of his bank cards to buy food at Viallis take-away in Leamington.

It emerged that a number of transactions had been carried out using cards from his wallet, which had been in his jacket hanging up in the hall at his home – including paying for a taxi from Leamington to Coventry at 2.30 that morning.

The house had been broken into by the front door being forces, and as well as his wallet, the intruders had taken the keys to his and his partner’s cars, a BMW M4 and a Seat Leon, which had then been stolen from outside.

When Coulson was arrested just over two weeks later, he accepted using the cards, but said he had been given them by another man and did not realise they had been stolen.

But cell site analysis of his phone showed it had been in the area of the burgled house at around one in the morning, and had then been in Coventry before returning to Leamington.

So he was interviewed again, and admitted being in a car in Whitnash with other people, but claimed he had not known what they were doing – and he was released under investigation.

Then on Saturday June 22 last year Coulson was with a group of friends in Kelsey’s bar in Leamington.

“After a stray glance there was a confrontation,” said Mr Windridge, who played a CCTV recording of what followed.

He described: “Mr Coulson had a drink in his left hand, and he takes a drink and moves the glass from his left to his right hand and pushes it into the face of (his victim).”

There was then ‘a general melee’ as Coulson was set upon by his victim’s friends, during which his t-shirt got ripped, and he made off as the police arrived, but was found in some bushes.

The victim had to have stitches in seven wounds to his face which have left him with permanent scars, including a swollen ‘alleyway scar’ which is said to be unlikely to get any better.

As a result he says he is terrified by people drinking around him, not knowing how they will react in drink, and can’t stand people including his girlfriend taking pictures with him on.

But when Coulson was interviewed, he claimed it was he who had been subjected to an attack, and did not accept being the aggressor, even which confronted with the CCTV recording.

He was granted bail by magistrates, and in July he broke into a house in Back Lane, Oxhill, by smashing a window with a rock from the garden and took the keys to two cars before driving off in one of them, a VW.

Three days later the car, which was by then of false number plates, was involved in an accident in Cubbington and ended up in a field where it was found abandoned.

But Coulson’s fingerprints were found on the false number plates, and documents with his name and address on were found in the car, said Mr Windridge.

The court heard that at the time of the first burglary Coulson, who had a previous conviction for assault, was subject to a conditional discharge for theft, and by the time of the later offences was on a community order for taking a car.

Dean Kershaw, defending, said Coulson had got to the age of 17 without committing any offences, but had then come into contact with his father’s family and began taking cocaine with them, but they had then ‘called in the debt.’

Judge Barry Berlin gave Coulson seven years for the wounding, with consecutive sentences of 28 months and six months for the burglaries - and no separate penalty for the car thefts.

The judge told him: “These offences are extremely serious, and I have a public duty to perform. You committed these offences under the influence of drink and drugs.”

Of the wounding, he said: “He was looking the wrong way. You got involved and smashed the glass quite deliberately into his face, causing permanent scarring and psychological injury.

“What I find unpalatable is that you did not accept that, even when you were shown the CCTV by the police.”