Jail for pair in store scissor stab attack
Two men who stabbed a shopper with scissors up to 15 times during a daytime attack in a busy Wolverhampton city centre store have each been jailed for nine years and three months.
Leon Smith and Anthony O'Callaghan had both taken a pair of scissors into the city centre with them because had intended to use to steal mobile phones by cutting the security wire protecting the handsets, a judge heard. But they were used as weapons after bumping into victim Simon Calvin.
They rained blows on Mr Calvin inside the Foot Locker store, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
Prosecutor Peter Arnold said that cross words had been exchanged between the defendants and victim while they were in Phones 4 U and the Carphone Warehouse.
But violence flared when the three met by chance soon afterwards in the sports shop on January 2.
Mr Calvin was stabbed six times in the back as well as suffering wounds to the chest, head and neck.
He later told police: "I lost my balance and they were on top of me with blows coming from everywhere.
"It was as if a cup of water had been tipped over my head but it was blood."
The attackers fled while the victim went to hospital where doctors found 15 injuries including five "penetrative" wounds that had missed his major organs.
Smith, 22, was recognised by police on CCTV coverage of the afternoon attack. O'Callaghan was caught later. Mr Devon Small, defending Smith, said: "He had scissors to cut the wires off mobile phones and just lashed out with them."
Mr Henry Spooner, for 23-year-old O'Callaghan, said: "This was a spontaneous incident that blew up out of nothing."
Smith of no fixed address and O'Callaghan from Fieldhouse Road, Yardley, admitted wounding with intent.
