A drinker who left a man with nerve damage to his face after smashing a bottle over his head has escaped a jail sentence.

Simon Parker, of Millington Drive, Trowbridge, armed himself with the weapon before he lashed out at his victim during a melee outside the Just So Cafe in Castle Street, Trowbridge.

But after hearing the 24-year-old came from a good family and had waited two years for the matter to come to court, a judge put him on a suspended sentence.

Hanna Squire, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court how victim Sebastian Beddis had gone out on the night of Friday, January 26, 2007.

He was with a group of friends and the defendant was in another gang of young men in the same bar.

During the evening there was some friction between the two groups, the court was told.

In the early hours of the following morning Parker and his pals left the bar and soon after Mr Beddis and his friends went outside.

Miss Squire said that outside a melee developed between the two groups and Mr Beddis later told police he found himself caught in the middle of it.

He was then told he had been cut on the head and was found to be bleeding from a gash to the right hand side of his face.

Door staff saw what had happened and chased after Parker catching him and finding he still had a broken blood stained bottle neck in his hand.

They detained him and held on to the glass until the police arrived and took him away.

When questioned, Parker told police he had put a bottle into the waistband of his trousers in case he needed it to protect himself when he got outside.

He said he used it to strike his victim, who he had not singled out, over the head and it broke on impact.

As a result of the assault, Mr Beddis needed seven stitches on the outside of the six to seven centimetre cut near his right eye and more on the inside.

He was also found to have suffered nerve damage which meant he could no longer move his right eyebrow.

Parker admitted a charge of actual bodily harm.

The court heard he had a previous conviction for a similar matter from 2000.

Jason Taylor, defending, said his client had planned to leave the club and get a taxi home because of ill feeling inside.

But when he got outside someone got into the cab before him leaving him stranded, so he returned to his group of friends.

As the others left soon after he saw the trouble escalate and thought one of his friends had been attacked with a bottle so went for the weapon he had put in his trousers.

He said the incident happened two years and two months ago and his client had not been in any trouble since.

Since the attack he said Parker had suffered from serious depression and lost his job driving fork lift trucks.

Judge Douglas Field said: “The serious features of this are obvious: you armed yourself with a bottle and in the melee that was occurring outside this establishment you used it and it caused this nasty injury to the victim.

“I take the view that you come from effectively a respectable family. Apart from this fall from grace as a juvenile you have led a faultless life before this moment of madness.”

He imposed a 48-week jail term suspended for a year and told him to do 200 hours of community service, observe a curfew from 8pm to 6am for three months, pay £250 compensation and £260 costs.