Boss stabbed employee with butter knife: MoD manager jailed after drunken attack

12 April 2012

A Ministry of Defence manager who attacked an employee with a wine glass before stabbing him with a butter knife has been jailed for 20 months.

Wayne Whitwell, 40, was suspended after his drunken attack on Neil Stacey at a retirement party and now faces the sack after 20 years at the MoD.

In October last year Mr Stacey and Whitwell, his line manager, went out drinking with other civil servants. Southwark crown court heard the two men had worked together since 2003 and Mr Stacey blamed his boss for the fact he had not been promoted.

He said he confronted Whitwell over his management style and was accused of not "caring and just being in it for the money". An argument broke out when the group moved on to an Indian restaurant in Charing Cross Road. Mr Stacey interrupted Whitwell's conversation with a woman colleague and Whitwell tried to pour a drink over Mr Stacey, who punched him in the face.

Whitwell waited several minutes before his attack. Gavin Ludlow-Thompson, prosecuting, said: "He grabbed a wine glass from the table and endeavoured to use it to strike his victim. He then picked up a bottle which he tried to smash but didn't succeed, so he threw it on the floor. Next he grabbed the table vase - that he didn't smash, but he struck the victim with it."

Whitwell then armed himself with a butter knife. Mr Ludlow-Thompson said: "The victim was on the ground in a foetal position and the defendant had got him in a headlock. He struck him initially with the vase and then with the butter knife, which he was using to stab him in the back of the neck."

The court heard that none of the civil servants "appeared at all interested" and a bystander was forced to pull Whitwell away. The victim was treated for five large gashes and three smaller cuts to his face and head as well as bruises and cuts caused by the knife.

Whitwell, of Welling, Kent, admitted causing grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm to Mr Stacey and affray for trapping a pregnant diner with a table during the clash.

Sentencing, Mr Recorder Louis Weston, said: "You are a 40-year-old man of good character and I'm impressed by your remorse. But this offence was outrageous."

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