Hartlepool man locked up for stabbing victim during fight in his front garden

The victim suffered what was feared to be a life-threatening wound when he was stabbed in the abdomen by Danny Bailey.

Bailey, 20, had been in his garden talking to another male when the victim came past on his way back from the shops.

Teesside Crown Court heard there was tensions between the victim and other male and they started fighting.

Martin Towers, prosecuting, said: “Whilst these two were fighting the defendant armed himself with a knife and intervened in the fight by stabbing the victim in the abdomen.

"The knife went deep into the victim’s body and caused a wound to his liver.”

The victim pulled the knife out and went home where his horrified partner called 999 for help.

But just minutes later Bailey and the other male turned up at his door.

Bailey, wearing a dressing gown and brandishing another knife, kicked the front door and shouted: “Get out the house now.”

The other male threw rocks at the window. The victim’s three-year-old child was present, the court heard.

The victim underwent emergency surgery. He made a quick physical recovery but said in a statement the incident has had a “huge impact” on his life.

He said: “I rarely leave the house now. I’m constantly thinking someone is going to hurt me.”

Bailey pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm, two counts of having a blade and one of damaging property over the incidents on January 2.

Stephen Constantine, mitigating, said Bailey was “minding his own business” when the fight in his garden broke out.

Mr Constantine said: “He wasn’t looking for a fight. He had no issues with the victim whatsoever.”

He said Bailey’s intention was to stab the victim in the arm, adding: “This is a case which involved excessive self defence.”

The court heard Bailey, of Hazel Grove, Hartlepool, had no previous convictions for violence.

Judge Timothy Stead sentenced him to 27 months in a young offenders’ institution and gave him a seven-year restraining order.

He also ordered that both of the knives be destroyed.