Jail for man who stamped on stranger’s head

Monday 25th January 2010, 3:00PM GMT.

The Royal Court building

AN apprentice carpenter who kicked and stamped on a stranger’s head until he blacked out has been jailed for a year.

Lee Cowling (22) was drunk when he pushed his victim from behind and launched a volley of kicks and punches as the man lay curled in a ball.He left his victim with a bloodstained face, cuts and bruises.

The Royal Court heard on Friday that Cowling had been in and out of trouble with the police since he was a boy. He started taking class A drugs when he was nine and was addicted to sniffing aerosol cans at 14.

Cowling had been drinking on a ‘booze cruise’ on the day of the unprovoked attack in Clearview Street on 5 September.

The Crown moved for a two-year prison sentence but Cowling, who pleaded guilty to grave and criminal assault, was jailed for 12 months. His lawyer, Advocate Chris Baglin, had argued that community service and probation would be more fitting punishments.

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