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Labourer stabbed his boss in the back
Jailed: Jerome Baird
A man who stabbed his boss nine times after he racially abused him has been jailed for five years.
Jerome Baird, 22, continued to stab his employer in the back as he was being escorted out of the house where a fight had broken out between them.
Preston Crown Court heard Brendan Cody, 37, had hired Baird as a labourer and was planning on offering him a permanent position at AMS Cladding.
But after a night drinking whisky and Jack Daniels at the home of workmate Daniel Bilsborrow, Cody began bullying Baird, calling him racist names and punching him to the floor.
Baird retreated to the kitchen but when his boss followed him and the fight continued he picked up a kitchen knife from the block and stabbed him.
Mr Bilsborrow’s partner, Nicola Steel, found the men fighting in the kitchen and started walking Mr Cody towards the hallway.
But Baird followed Mr Cody and stabbed him a further two or three times in the back.
Karen Brooks, prosecuting, said: “After two or three stabbing motions the Mr Cody stumbled forwards and fell to the floor in the kitchen doorway.
“Nicola placed herself on top of him to prevent him from being stabbed anymore.”
Baird dropped the knife and ran from the house and Miss Steel screamed for her partner to come from upstairs.
Mr Cody suffered nine stab wounds to his back, chest and hand and spent a week in Royal Preston Hospital.
He also had lacerations to his lung and a damaged kidney.
Baird was arrested at his home in Adelphi Court, Preston, and admitted stabbing Mr Cody, telling officers: “He went for me first. I picked up the closest thing and did what I had to do.”
Nicolas Watson, defending, told the court Baird was not a habitually violent man and described the attack as “very much out of character.”
However he said Mr Cody was “an extremely violent man” with a number of previous convictions for assault.
During the attack, Baird suffered a broken nose and a black eye and was subjected to “hostility based on race”, Mr Williams said.
He added: “This was a split second decision by the defendant to arm himself in very difficult personal circumstances. His immediate intention was to defend himself.
Jerome Baird was scared and extremely fearful of Brendan Cody who was determined to engage in violence with him.
“To his credit the defendant recognises what he did was wholly inappropriate.”
Judge Michael Byrne, sentencing, said: “The fact remains this was a repeated and sustained attack with the use of a dangerous weapon, namely a knife.
“The injuries could have been so very much more serious, if not indeed fatal.”
Baird will serve two and a half years behind bars before he is released to serve the rest of his sentence on licence.
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Sunday 19 May 2013
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