A Carlisle man has been told he could be jailed for attacking a man close to the city centre.

Peter Gray, 45, admitted two crimes at Carlisle Crown Court yesterday. Gray pleaded guilty to unlawfully and maliciously wounding Martyn Reading, and also to possessing an offensive weapon - a knuckle duster - at Water Street. Both crimes occurred on July 26 when the victim is said to have sustained a “nasty wound” - a laceration above his eyebrow - and multiple bruising.

David Wales, defending, described the weapon as a ring worn across multiple fingers with a bar across the top, adding it was “to all intents and purposes jewellery designed as a knuckle duster”.

Judge Peter Davies adjourned the case to May 20. But he told Gray, of Woodside North, Upperby: “You will be bailed but don’t take it from that that the consequences will be that you won’t go to jail: that’s certainly an option.”