A Good Samaritan was ‘saved by his gilet’ in a stabbing that was filmed and uploaded to Snapchat.

Footage of Leighton Kimber’s brutal assault outside shops in Barton Fields, Oxford, was shared widely on social media. The video was sent on to detectives investigating the stabbing.

On Friday, 18-year-old Kimber was sentenced to three years in youth detention for carrying out the attack.

Sending him down, Judge Ian Pringle QC said: “You lost your temper and a fight started. What nobody knew until you produced it was that you had with you a weapon.

“It is unclear whether it was a screwdriver or whether it was some form of knife, but whatever it was you used it and used it on a number of occasions.

“You stabbed the victim a number of times with that weapon. That is utterly unacceptable and I think you know that.

“I would be failing in my duty were I not to pass an immediate prison sentence today.”

Earlier, Oxford Crown Court heard that the victim felt he had been ‘saved by his gilet’. He was stabbed four times, in the shoulder, arm, lower leg and groin.

Prosecutor Hassan Baig told Judge Pringle: “I have spoken to the victim today and he said something which I think it is only right and fair that I told the court. He said to me it is not his desire for Mr Kimber to spend a significant period of his life in prison because that would ruin his life.

“The victim says [Kimber] should be punished but what is very clear is that he would prefer Mr Kimber to have learnt his lesson and be rehabilitated.”

The complainant was said to have visited shops in Barton Fields on the night of November 8, 2020, when he saw two men fighting. He intervened to break them up.

Kimber, who was not known to the victim nor involved in the original fight, went on to attack the man. In the scuffle, which lasted around a minute, he produced a weapon – either a knife or screwdriver – and repeatedly stabbed at the victim. The man’s wounds required suturing.

Mitigating, Ronan McCann said his client was remorseful and offered his ‘unreserved apology’ to the victim.

Explaining why Kimber was carrying the weapon, the barrister said that in 2015 the teen was subject to a vicious attack in which his throat was slit.

Kimber, of Ilsley Road, Oxford, pleaded guilty to wounding with intent. He had no previous convictions.