AN ATTACKER stabbed a man in the chest outside a Coventry nightclub while hurling vile racist abuse – then stabbed another to the head when he was cornered after being pursued.
And Jamie Hislop, whose second attack had caused the blade of the knife to snap, continued to use racist language when he was arrested nearby.
Hislop, 28, of Cottage Farm Road, Keresley, Coventry, was jailed at Warwick Crown Court for six years and nine months after pleading guilty to wounding with intent and unlawful wounding.
Prosecutor Jonathan Barker said that in the early hours of Sunday February 26 Hislop was ejected from Club M in Coventry city centre because of his behaviour.
“Once ejected, he became abusive towards the door staff, including using racist abuse.”
He was spitting and swearing and behaving irrationally, and used racist language in reference to a Polish man in the club and towards the doormen.
Hislop left, but then returned as a group of friends were standing outside.
He was being aggressive and wanting to fight, and as he approached his first victim he suddenly lunged at him, stabbing him to the chest with a knife as the victim raised his arm to try to defend himself.
“The defendant then takes off on foot, running towards the ring road, with people chasing him.
“At one point the defendant had to stop because of a fence, and he turned and threw a punch at (his second victim).”
Mr Barker added the second victim ducked to evade that blow, but there were two further punches which made contact.
Mr Barker pointed out that Hislop still had the knife in his hand at the time, as a result of which the second victim suffered wounds to the side of his head and his ear, and to the back of his head.
Despite that, he continued to give chase and saw Hislop discard the knife, which had broken in two, and it was later recovered by the police.
Officers who turned up managed to capture Hislop on the central reservation of the ring road, and when he was arrested he told them: “I stabbed the ****** in the head. So what? I stabbed him in the head and the blade bent.”
His two victims were taken to hospital where the first was treated for a puncture wound to his chest and an injury to his arm, caused as he had tried to block the blow, and the second victim for the wounds to his ear and head.
Mr Barker added that Hislop had previous convictions for assault, affray and having an offensive weapon, and was subject to a community order for causing criminal damage at the time.
Justin Jarmola, defending, said that despite the language he used, Hislop was not a racist, and his former partner, with whom he has a child, is black.
And Judge Stephen Eyre QC told him: “I am prepared to sentence on the basis that he would have attacked these people no matter what their ethnicity, but he used that as some form of justification for what he did.”
Mr Jarmola, said that a few days earlier Hislop had been involved in a domestic incident, during which he had spat at a relative of his partner.
“He was in a perfect storm. He tells me he had been drinking for four or five days by the time he found himself outside this night club, and he was also using steroids at the time, and he says his mind was gone at that stage.
“But for that, he tells me, these offences would never have happened. He apologises and expresses remorse.”
Judge Eyre told Hislop: “I have to sentence you for drunken violence in Coventry at night with a knife at a time when you are expressing vile racist abuse.
“You were drunk, and you had a knife, and you were abusive to pretty well everyone who came into contact with you.
“(The first victim) was seeking to calm matters down, and the reward he received for that was for you to stab him in the chest.
“You ran off, and (the second victim), in a public-spirited way, and others chased you. You punched him and, because you had the knife in your hand, he received cuts to his head.
“It is your good fortune that more serious injury was not caused. I accept you were not motivated by racial hatred. It’s clear you were going to attack anyone who came across your path.”
