A MAN who stabbed a fellow pub-goer in the neck in an unprovoked attack has been jailed for eight years.
Ian Magee, 61, used a pocketknife to inflict a ‘potentially fatal stab wound’ on his victim at the Standing Order pub in Derby in April last year.
He pleaded not guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm but was found guilty by a jury in October last year and was sentenced at Leicester Crown Court on Thursday.
“This was an utterly appalling attack in the middle of the afternoon in a crowded city centre pub,” sad Temporary DC Cathryn Mansfield from Derbyshire Constabulary.
Nightmares
Officers were called just before 4.05pm on April 6, 2023 to reports of a man having been stabbed at the pub.
Magee, of Shalfleet Drive, Alvaston, Derby, stabbed his 48-year-old victim in the neck with a pocketknife, with the attack being captured on the venue’s CCTV.
The man was given life-saving treatment, however, he revealed he had suffered physical and emotional side effects from the attack.
“This incident has caused me to feel depressed. I don’t really go anywhere anymore,” he said.
“I don’t go to town or pubs. I don’t see the people I used to see anymore.
“Since I was stabbed, I have lost feeling in the jaw area and neck on the left side which is where I was stabbed — and I can’t feel my bottom lip or my chin.
“I have nightmares all the time and I can’t sleep at night. I wake up every 5 or 10 minutes.
“I have been seen to be shaking in my sleep. I dream about being stabbed,
“I feel a pain in my neck and then I feel like I’m on the floor and then I’m dying and then I am being shook.
“I don’t understand it or why it has happened to me. It has changed my life.”
‘Horrendous’
Temporary DC Mansfield welcomed the sentencing and said the actions of staff, customers and emergency services ‘no doubt saved this man’s life’.
“For reasons that only Ian Magee knows he took a knife out [of] his pocket and delivered a potentially fatal stab wound,” she said.
“There was no aggression from his victim and certainly nothing that could have warranted the violence used by Magee.
“As was heard from the victim in court the impact on him has been devastating and continues to this day.
“I hope that today’s sentencing brings this most horrendous chapter to a close and allows him to begin to come to terms with [this] incident and move on from this ordeal.
“I would also like to thank the staff, customers, and first responders whose actions that day I have no doubt saved this man’s life.”
Magee was also handed an extended four-year licence period.