Drug dealer slashed across the eye in bloody knife assault on Wakefield residential street

The man pulled out the blade during a day-time argument in the Eastmoor area, but it was taken from him by teenager Martin Nicholson, who then attacked him with the weapon and left the man with a deep laceration to his face and eye.

Nicholson, who is now 21, was jailed at Leeds Crown Court after admitting Section 18 GBH, wounding with intent.

Prosecutor Gareth Henderson-Moore said that the dealer had been on Greenwood Road at around 1.30pm on March 29, 2021, when a white Audi pulled up with Nicholson as the passenger. Nicholson was looking to buy cocaine, it was heard.

The man spoke to Nicholson through the window and it was later said that the victim had thought the Audi was there to “invade his patch” to sell drugs.

The dealer then pulled out the knife, but Nicholson grabbed him and it dropped into the car. He then picked it up and got out of the vehicle and attacked the man, slashing him across the face.

Nicholson was later arrested and said it was the victim who had pulled the knife initially and the trouble was triggered by a drug-dealing spat.

The victim, who is now serving a prison sentence for drug dealing, did not cooperate with the police so the long-term prognosis of his injuries could not be ascertained, particularly if he had permanently lost the sight in his eye.

Mitigating, Alasdair Campbell told the court: “It was clearly a drug deal that has gone wrong. The complainant was drug dealing but that does not make the defendant’s position any better.”

He said that since the attack, Nicholson, of Heath Caravan Site, Doncaster Road, Wakefield, had stopped taking drugs and was now a “very different person” to whom was in 2021. He said Nicholson had left school at around 11 or 12 and perhaps did not have the education to deal with such situations.

The judge, Recorder David Kelly jailed Nicholson for four-and-a-half-years and told him: “You are still a young man, at the time you were only 18 and I very much have that in mind.

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“The offence is a particularly grave crime. You had gone to a housing estate in the middle of the day to buy cocaine. You were the passenger in a car and the complainant came and leaned in through the window.

“You wrestled the knife from him and that should have been the end of it. You should have told the driver to drive off.

“For reasons you can’t explain, you got out with the complainant’s knife and attacked him and caused grave injury, with deep wounds to his face and caused significant damage to his eye.”