Teenager jailed for nightclub bottle attack on footballer (From Stroud News and Journal)

Teenager jailed for nightclub bottle attack on footballer

A TEENAGER who bottled Stroud professional footballer Matthew Young in a vicious pub assault has been caged for three-and-a-half years.

Luke Connor, 18, of Stratford road, Stroud, was sentenced to 12 months in a young offenders' institution for the assault and two-and-a-half years for possession of a firearm.

Last year a jury at Gloucester Crown Court found him guilty of unlawfully wounding Mr Young - who plays football in Brazil - on July 8th 2005 at the Warehouse nightclub, in Russell Street, Stroud.

Judge Carole Hagen, sitting at Bristol crown court to pass sentence, heard that he has a string of previous convictions to his name including matters of robbery, affray and theft.

The firearm offence occurred in the early hours of October 4 last year outside the Timbuktu nightclub in Bristol.

Co-accused Adam Riach, from Bristol, was also sentenced to 12 months for possessing a prohibited firearm on that night.

During the trial at Gloucester Mr Young, 20, who was home visiting friends in Stroud, told the jury that Connor, 18, 'muttered something' at him before hitting him with the bottle, leaving him with an inch-long scar to the forehead.

Mr Young said that he was taking time off from his contract with a professional second division Brazilian football club to see old friends in Stroud when the attack happened.

He said he and two friends had gone to the Warehouse nightclub, in Russell Street, Stroud on that night, and that he had drunk just three glasses of wine.

"Being a footballer I'm not a very big drinker and I live a healthy lifestyle," Mr Young said. "At the time I was training every day and playing games.

"The nightclub was quite empty and we only stayed for 30 or 40 minutes. It was just a normal night and we didn't intend to stay long - one or two drinks and then home.

"We finished our drinks and then made our way to the exit. I walked through the bar area and someone brushed against me.

"He sort of muttered something in my ear. I couldn't really catch what he was saying and as I turned my body around I was struck to the centre of my forehead with a glass bottle.

"It was just a split-second, as though I had turned around and walked into a bottle. As he took the bottle away I got a good look at who it was.

"It was a black male of about 20. We had had a small confrontation before the incident. In the queue he had pushed into my back - I thought it was a friend at first. A bouncer split us up."

He said he felt the bouncer had unfairly blamed him for starting that earlier incident in the queue when it was not his fault.

Mr Young said he was taken from the club in an ambulance shortly after the alleged attack and was treated in hospital.

Connor had claimed he punched, not bottled, Mr Young in self-defence because he was threatening him.