A TEENAGER who launched “cowardly and spineless” unprovoked attacks on two men outside a West Cumbria pub has been locked up for more than a year.
Mark Trainor was drunk having attended his best friend’s surprise 18th birthday party at Harrington’s Lifeboat Inn on March 15 last year when he engaged in what a judge called “gratuitous street violence” outside the premises.
Eyewitness Esha Denwood watched as Trainor – who she’d known for several years – walked over and brutally attacked both Nicky Walsh and Matthew Nicol. Mr Walsh suffered a double jaw fracture, severe bruising and cuts when he was knocked to the ground and punched up to half a dozen times, while his pal Mr Nicol was also felled and sustained injuries including a cut to his chin.
“I don’t even think they saw it coming,” Miss Denwood told a Carlisle Crown Court jury last month. Trainor – 17 at the time, now aged 18 and with convictions for violence as a youth – denied causing Mr Walsh grievous bodily harm and Mr Nicol actual bodily harm, but was convicted, unanimously, after a trial.
Both victims provided impact statements, revealing they had suffered from sleeping difficulties, and that there had been an impact on their respective jobs.
Mr Walsh suffered a permanent displacement of bite, had no solids for six weeks and spoke of anxiety when in crowds and among people drinking. Mr Nicol described a “horrifying experience”, and being in immense physical pain.
The court heard today (FRI) Trainor, of High Close, Harrington, now accepted he attacked the two men, and he told Recorder Christopher Hudson from the dock: “I am sorry. Don’t send me away.”
But, passing a immediate 15-month young offender institution sentence, Recorder Hudson replied: “You are a lad who has to go to custody.” He told Trainor: “They are nasty, cowardly, spineless offences. You attacked these entirely innocent chaps.”
