Man spared jail for Oswestry park stabbing that left victim with just one kidney

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The injuries caused following the stabbing on August 16, 2022, resulted in the victim, a 17-year-old boy, having a kidney and part of his liver removed, Shrewsbury Crown Court heard on Monday.

His attacker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been with a group of other boys in the Oswestry park when he stabbed his victim in the back.

Mr Dylan Wagg, prosecuting, said the group of boys were in the park smoking and hanging out in a play area.

He told the court that his assailant had been aware of a “beef or issue” between one of the group and the 17-year-old victim.

He said the gang had decided to go to the house of one member of the group to smoke cannabis and were walking back from the play area, when the attack happened.

Mr Wagg told the court that the victim was walking in front of his assailant, who brushed past him, leaving the 17-year-old feeling “winded”.

“He then realised he had been stabbed and fell to the floor,” said Mr Wagg, adding that the attacker then rode off on his bike.

The court heard was told that the youth returned a short time later and using his victim’s phone, called the boy’s mother.

But he denied stabbing him, first blaming a “man in the bushes” then pointing blame to another member of the group.

Mr Wagg said the boy continued denying the stabbing but was found guilty by a jury in June this year of one count of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and one count of possession of a bladed article.

The court was told after the attack the boy’s victim was taken to hospital where he lost a kidney and also had to have part of his liver removed. He was also placed in an induced coma after contracting sepsis.

In a victim impact statement he said he had also been left “scarred for life” following the attack.

In mitigation, Ms Debra White, reminded the judge that the defendant had only just turned 16 at the time of the attack, had no criminal convictions up until the incident, and was also in the care sector at the time of the offence.

She also told the court that the defendant had accumulated more than 800 qualifying days on a GPS curfew, which amounted to the equivalent of more than 12 months in custody.

Judge Deni Mathews said he had to consider what the sentence would have been if he were to have handed it down a week after the incident when the defendant was 16. He added that he had also read a pre-sentence report on the defendant.

He told the defendant: “You still have not accepted that you were the person that stabbed him, but you have stayed away from further offending.

“This was an offence that resulted in a permanent and serious injury,” the judge said. “But fortunately, having recovered from surgery this victim does not have any substantial long-term effects but what he does have is an increased exposure to risk having lost a kidney.”

He said if the defendant had been an adult, he would be facing up to eight years in jail.

“But I must consider what the sentence would have been if you were the 16-year-old child that committed the offence in August 2022,” the judge said.

He added: “If you put a knife into a person in a park, the overwhelming majority of cases would be immediate custody.”

But he said that in this instance, with the qualifying curfew and the “progress made” since the incident, he had decided to suspend the sentence.

He handed the defendant a three year custodial sentence but suspended the sentence for 36 months.

The defendant was also ordered to conduct 125 hours of unpaid work and told to continue working with the probation service.