Court: Man left blinded after attack in Sharkey’s Sports Bar following racist abuse from Christchurch barman Lewis Smith

A MAN was blinded in one eye when he was attacked after he and his friends were subjected to racist abuse.

Giving a victim impact statement at Southampton Crown Court, Jamol Jumaboev sobbed as he told how he had been left “depressed” and unable to work as a result.

He said: “This has affected my life in so many ways. I suffered unbearable and excruciating pain from an unprovoked and violent attack. I have not been into a single bar, or club, this took place.

“I isolate myself at home where I feel safe.”

The court heard he was enjoying a night out at Sharkey’s Sports Bar in Southampton with two friends, Julia Barszczak and Nikita Kostrusintd, on 7th July last year.

They were playing on an arcade machine on a landing at the popular bar.

Prosecutor Keely Harvey said a group of drunk men started making comments about them and an argument started.

Mr Jumaboev tried to calm the situation, but Harry Taylor (34), of Park Gardens, Christchurch, shouted at the trio: “You’re not even British. What the f**k you doing here? Get the f**k back to where you are from.”

This, she said, “fired things up again and acted as a catalyst for what followed”.

Ms Barszczak went towards the group before Mr Jumaboev held her back. A friend of Taylor’s, 31-year-old Lewis Smith, of Christchurch, then attacked him.

CCTV of the attack showed Smith repeatedly punching his victim in the face. Ms Harvey said Mr Jumaboev’s spectacles were broken in the attack and a shard of glass went into his right eye rupturing it.

Operations to restore his sight have proved unsuccessful and he has been left unable to drive, or do his job as an IT team leader.

When arrested, Smith, a chef, of Bargates, claimed Mr Jumaboev and his friends had “instigated” the incident and said he had “felt threatened as they were all bigger than him”. He had been drinking and also smoked cannabis. He pleaded guilty to assault causing grievous bodily harm.

Taylor told police he had been a “seven out of ten” drunk and that everything that had happened was “blurry”. He said he did not remember being racist, but pleaded guilty to racially aggravated threatening behaviour with fear or provocation of violence.

Reading a victim impact statement, Ms Barszczak said she felt “guilt” at what had happened to Mr Jumaboev.

She told how her mother “made sacrifices” to bring her family to England for a better life, but she said she now wanted to “move away” from the country because she no longer felt safe.

Defence barrister Ned Sillett, representing Smith, said he had recently split with his partner and it was a “dark time” in his life. He had tried to commit suicide and was “using alcohol as a crutch”.

He added: “He feels horrible about what he has done. He is deeply ashamed of his behaviour.”

For Taylor, barrister Mark Florida James said that his actions were “shameful for him, as at work he often has to deal with the sort of person he became that night”.

He said that Taylor worked with people from other countries and some of his friends “are the same sort of people as the victims”.

Mr added: “He is a decent young man who behaved in a despicable, disgusting manner.”

Sentencing Smith to 30 months in jail, Judge Christopher Parker KC told him that he had left his victim with “lifelong injuries” that had had a “devastating effect”.

Giving Taylor a four month-prison sentence, suspended for two years, he said: “You are the person who probably kicked this off in the first place. You may not have been fighting yourself but what you did caused the violence that followed.”

He was also ordered to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.