A ‘nurse of the year’ left his neighbour with a slash across his chin in a dispute over noise.

Nicholas Wing, 55, had shouted his displeasure at his neighbour playing loud music in his Berinsfield garden on August 1 last year.

Later that evening, the other man knocked on Wing’s front door. The defendant armed himself with a knife and, according to the victim, ran out the door.

The encounter, which was filmed by the victim’s partner, showed Wing swiping his fist at his opponent’s chin and saying: “Turn it down, man. That’s all I’m asking.”

Prosecutor Oliver Kelham told Oxford Crown Court that the defendant shut his front door on the victim’s foot. The man, who was left with a cut beneath his chin, had to use a ‘discarded pan’ to prise open the door and release his trapped foot.

In a statement read to the court, the victim said: “I could have lost my life if the knife had been a couple of inches lower.”

Jailing him for a year, Recorder John Bate-Williams said: “I see this as a moment of madness, clearly precipitated by very heavy drinking on the day.

“But I cannot treat this as anything other than a very serious offence which given your incoherence and loss of control on the day could have caused very serious or even fatal injuries.

“I find the video footage of the incident quite chilling.”

The judge told Wing he was passing a sentence that would ‘hopefully deter you and others from excessive drinking and then using knives, which as we know can cause devastating injuries’

“In my judgement I cannot find that appropriate punishment can be achieved by anything other than an immediate custodial sentence,” he added.

Scott Primmer, mitigating, said his client’s alcohol intake had steadily increased after a series of family tragedies in 2012. He drank between six and eight cans in the evening and described himself as a functioning alcoholic.

He had been a nurse healthcare assistant in the NHS for 36 years and, Mr Primmer said, won a ‘nurse of the year’ award in 2020. The dad of three worked with people who struggled with addiction and his patients had put him forward for an NHS ‘daisy’ award, recognising outstanding care.

The advocate described the punch Wing threw while holding a knife in his hand as ‘reckless in the extreme, incredibly stupid and, again, Mr Wing is deeply remorseful’.

Wing, of Colwell Road, Berinsfield, pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court to causing actual bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon.

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