Teenager detained for four years over horrific stabbing

Ryan James Sutton, was cleared by a jury at Leeds Crown Court last month of attempting to murder Mark Davidson and of wounding him with intent but found guilty of unlawfully wounding him at a house in Weighbridge Close, Kirbymoorside in North Yorkshire, on April 30.

Sentencing him to four years detention in a young offender institution, the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC said Sutton posed a risk to the public when faced with difficult situations.

The judge said in his short life Sutton had amassed a significant record having appeared for sentence on 23 previous occasions for 36 offences which included five for battery or common assault and one for assault causing actual bodily harm.

He said the jury had accepted by their verdicts om this occasion that he did not intend to kill or seriously injure Mr Davidson but rejected his account he used excessive self defence.

“I accept you had a history with Mr Davidson, some years ago you stole a satellite navigation system from the father of a friend of his and that he and the friend had assaulted you and you held a grudge about that incident,” he said.

In April, after learning he was at a friend’s home Sutton had gone there with a knife “for whatever purpose and when you saw him there, you, clearly affected by drink lost your temper and you attacked him with the knife”.

He tried to hide behind a table using it as a shield between them. “But you chased him round the table and lunged at him with the knife several times,” he said.

They ended up tussling on the floor and Mr Davidson was stabbed in the stomach the knife penetrating through the abdomen,

Mr Davidson was taken to hospital and although the knife hit no vital organs, narrowly missing the spleen, he then developed peritonitis and had to have an operation which had left him scarred.

He had also lost his confidence and was fearful of being attacked if he goes out.

Andrew Semple for Sutton, recently of Osgodby Hall Road, Osgodby, Scarborough, said he came from a troubled background but the incident happened on the spur of the moment after an argument when he lost control.