A MAN has been jailed for stabbing a Good Samaritan who tried to stop a family argument after Carlisle’s annual fire show.
Petrified children who were among thousands leaving the annual Bitts Park event at around 8-15pm on November 2 saw Kevin John Whelan lash out at grandfather Alistair Elliott.
Mr Elliott had been walking in the Shaddongate area with his daughter and her two young children when he saw 35-year-old Whelan – who’d been drinking – behaving aggressively and assaulting his own partner, Elizabeth Adshead.
As Mr Elliott calmly intervened in a brave bid to stop further trouble, Whelan squared up to him before using a knife to stab the granddad through his clothing and into his shoulder. He suffered a puncture wound which was cleaned in hospital, was left “shocked and stunned” and had reflected on a lucky escape, Carlisle Crown Court heard.
Mr Elliott’s daughter had heard Whelan say “I will slit your throat”, and described her children being left “petrified and very upset” by what they saw. “Blood was pouring from the wound,” prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told the court.
Mr Elliott had later said: “I couldn’t really believe it had happened.” He had added: “We were just a little family out at a bonfire and fireworks display. By trying to help another family out I have been hurt.”
Whelan, who’d been drinking, was arrested at a Carlisle address several hours later. He admitted unlawfully and maliciously wounding Mr Elliott, assaulting Miss Adshead and illegal weapon possession.
Described as “remorseful”, Whelan, of Heywood Road, Ashton-on-Ribble, Preston, was jailed for 26 months.
Judge Julie Clemitson said of the stabbing: “It was an astonishing action for anyone to have done in a public place, with children, when a man was simply trying to stop a family argument escalating.”
Detective Constable Matthew Rees said: “Any assault involving a knife has the potential to end in tragedy.
“There is no excuse for people to be out in public in possession of a knife. The police take such offending extremely seriously.”
