CLUBBER GUILTY OF REVENGEATTACK

Derby Evening Telegraph, UK - Jun 4, 2003

A Derby man has been convicted of causing a fellow nightclubber grievous bodily harm in a revenge attack. Nigel Daffern (29), of Abbey Street, left Barry Thomson with a fractured skull, swelling to his brain and a broken jaw after assaulting him in the toilets at Flares nightclub in Becket Street, Derby.

He denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent and a lesser charge of causing grievous bodily harm. He was found guilty of the second charge by a majority verdict.

Mr Thomson told the jury during the trial at Derby Crown Court that he remembered nothing about the attack on June 18 last year and woke up in hospital a few days later.

He had been involved in an attack on Daffern in August the previous year, the court had heard, and there was a history of tension between them.

Daffern, who is deaf, had signed to Mr Thomson, who is also deaf, in the club that night that he would get him at the right time, the jury heard. Mr Thomson was at a urinal when he was attacked.

Judge Andrew Hamilton said that Daffern could have expected a jail sentence of four years if he had been found guilty of the more serious charge. He will be sentenced later this month.

© Northcliffe Electronic Publishing Ltd.