Appeal won after assault

A MAN who charged across a pub floor to butt a former work colleague over an alleged gambling debt today has had his prison sentence slashed.

Victim Bryan Bull required extensive dental work after he was savagely attacked by Michael David Redfern in Hanley's Reflex bar last year.

The 33-year-old defendant, of Acton Street, Birches Head, was jailed for 26 months at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court in September after a jury found him guilty of assault. But the sentence was reduced to 18 months at the Court of Appeal yesterday.

Mrs Justice Rafferty told the court how Redfern and Mr Bull, who had worked together at JCB in Rocester, had been at odds for some time.

But Redfern claimed he had been pushed into Mr Bull and that the injury was caused accidentally as they both fell.

Lawyers acting for Redfern argued the sentencing judge had assessed the offence as more serious than it was. And Mrs Justice Rafferty said: "There is force in the submission that two years and two months for these facts was not necessarily in the public interest."