Last updated 22:29, Wednesday, 06 February 2008

A WORKINGTON man was given a three-and-a-half year jail sentence for stabbing a schoolboy twice in the chest with a screwdriver.

The 14-year-old was left on a life support machine with a punctured lung after Mark Bromley, 29, stabbed him while trying to get him to l ea ve a party at a friend’s house.

Bromley, of Main Road, Harrington, pleaded guilty at Carlisle Crown Court on Friday to unlawfully wounding the boy.

Ian Dacre, prosecuting, said the incident happened at a drunken party attended by a group of teenagers and a few adults on March 30 last year.

After slanging match between the 14-year-old and another boy who he thought had been flirting with his girlfriend, the householder asked everyone to leave.

Bromley had drunk several bottles of lager and a bottle of whisky as well as taking a morphine, temazepam and valium tablets.

He intervened in the argument, trying to make the youngsters leave the house, but got into a fight with the teenager. The fight ended with Bromley plunging the screwdriver into his chest, the court was told.

The boy was taken to hospital gasping for breath, was put into intensive care and not allowed to leave for four days.

Brendan Burke, defending, said that Bromley, who had a previous conviction for attacking a man with a wheelbrace, was not totally to blame as several people at the party had behaved badly.