Prison sentence for glass attack man

Dominic Henry (25) of Coten End, Warwick, pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to assaulting Craig Berry, causing him actual bodily harm.

The court also heard how, subsequently, Mr Berry had retaliated and both men ended up being arrested and taken to hospital.

But Henry - who at the time of the assault had been the subject of a 30-week suspended prison sentence for a similar offence - originally only entered a guilty plea on the basis that he had caused the injury recklessly by throwing the glass which bounced off a wall and hit Mr Berry just behind his ear.

Then on January 1, when the court was due to hear a ‘trial of issue,’ Henry accepted he had picked up the glass and hit Mr Berry with it during the incident at Leamington’s Binswood Lodge hostel last May.

He was jailed for 18 months to run consecutively to 30 weeks left on an earlier suspended sentence which had been in connection with an attack in a bar where, once again, he hit a customer over the head with a glass.

Prosecutor Lal Amarasinghe said Mr Berry had been living at the hostel but staying at another address. Early that morning he returned to visit another resident’s room where the man and some friends were playing loud music as they made themselves breakfast.

Henry, who occupied one of the other rooms, took exception to the volume of the music and went to complain.

After becoming abusive he picked up a glass and struck Mr Berry, causing a cut behind his ear which bled.

But the court also heard that after calling the police, Mr Berry picked up part of a broken pool cue, followed Henry out of the hostel and struck him over the head. Both men were arrested.

Mr Berry was later charged with assault and ordered to do 40 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Judge Marten Coates took took a more serious view of Henry, after learning he had eight previous convictions for violence including assault and common assault.

In mitigation Gary Cook said when Henry had previously been in prison he began a cookery course and on his release got a job as a chef. He had tried to pursue the noise issue through the proper channels but to no avail.

Jailing Henry, the judge said: “I think you are a danger to people when you get into conflict with them.”