[A] MAN has been locked up for a vicious assault which left his victim bloodied, injured and fearing for his life.
Peter Ellwood, 33, headbutted, punched and kicked Abbas Emdadi-Zarnagi as he waited for a bus in Whitehaven town centre.
Mr Zarnagi was said to have felt his nose break during the attack, on the afternoon of May 25. Carlisle Crown Court heard he believed he might be killed, slipped out of consciousness and was heard by bystanders “whimpering” in pain.
Ellwood pleaded guilty to an actual bodily harm assault, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
A man with mental health problems, he claimed to have heard voices and believed a male was staring at and following him. He was said to have been in a “drug-induced psychosis” having self-medicated with drink and drugs.
Just weeks earlier he was handed a suspended jail term for a another violent attack, on a fellow shopper.
Recorder David Potter told Ellwood, of Seven Acres, Parton, Whitehaven: “It was, in my judgement, an unprovoked violent assault in a public place, in the middle of the day.”
