A CHESTER man has been jailed for a vicious attack that left a man with a fractured skull.
Aaron Richard Hinchcliffe, of Stratford Road, Blacon, left Liam Butler unconscious on the ground and in need of urgent medical attention after an altercation outside flats on Raymond Street, in the Garden Quarter of Chester.
Hinchcliffe kneed Mr Butler in the chest before punching him in the head, resulting in Mr Butler falling back and hitting his head on a parked car, fracturing his skull, injuring his face and knocking him unconscious.
Appearing at Chester Crown Court, Hinchcliffe, 23, pleaded guilty to the charge of causing actual bodily harm to Mr Butler, along with his co-accused, Ben Worthington, 23, of Wharf View, Chester, who pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of common assault on the same victim.
The incident happened on the evening of June 8 last year when both defendants had attended a party at a flat. Mr Butler was also there, along with his girlfriend.
Peter Hussey, prosecuting, told the court the victim and his girlfriend had a disagreement about whether or not to go to a nightclub and had gone outside to talk.
The victim’s girlfriend went back into the party ‘quite tearful’ and left her boyfriend outside after they had argued.
Hinchcliffe and Worthington both became angry after wrongly being told Mr Butler had assaulted his girlfriend, and went outside to confront him.
A concerned partygoer, Charlotte Ellison, followed the two outside and saw the assault on Mr Butler.
Mr Hussey said the defendants had argued with Mr Butler before Worthington punched him in the face before walking away after Miss Ellison, pleaded with him to stop.
As Worthington walked back inside, Hinchcliffe approached Mr Butler, placed his hands on his shoulders, and kneed him in the chest, winding him, before striking him to the side of the face, sending him backwards into a parked car.
In a statement, Miss Ellison said she immediately attended to Mr Butler, saying he was unresponsive, before calling an ambulance.
Mr Butler spent nearly two days at the Countess of Chester Hospital under observation and after his discharge from hospital on June 10 was told by doctors to inform them if he suffered any further problems.
Mr Butler visited his GP, Dr Rob Temple, several weeks later and told him he had lost his sense of smell.
Dr Temple told Mr Butler that there was very little that could be done and the likelihood was that the loss of smell would be permanent.
The two defendants pleaded guilty to the separate charges at an earlier crown court hearing.
Hinchcliffe had previously spent four months in a young offenders’ institute in 2009 after he assaulted and injured a paramedic who had been trying to give him medical assistance after finding him lying in the street after a night out.
Jailing him for two years, the Recorder of Chester, Judge Elgan Edwards, said: “You were a young man with a bright future, but you also have a dark past.
“This situation could have been even worse. You caused serious harm to the victim and he has permanently lost his sense of smell as a result of this attack.”
Worthington was sentenced to a 12 month community order and was ordered to undertake 100 hours of unpaid work.