A Dover man who left a schoolboy seriously injured after a dispute in the town centre escalated, has been sent to a Young Offenders Institution for 18 months.
 

Jamie Pettman (19) appeared at Canterbury Crown Court on Monday (23 January 2012) to be sentenced for the grievous bodily harm of the 16-year-old. He had admitted the assault at an earlier hearing.

The court was told that the boy was waiting for his friends outside a shop in Worthington Street, Dover, at about 9.30pm on Saturday 8 October last year. Whilst waiting in the street, the teenager was approached by two men who had been involved in a verbal altercation with his friends earlier in the evening.

The boy pushed one of the men and he fell over. Pettman joined in and as the school friends tried to calm the situation. Pettman walked off and then turned and ran at the 16-year-old hitting him on the side of the head and causing him to fall to the ground.

The boy did not get up and the emergency services were called. He was taken to the William Harvey Hospital at Ashford but later transferred to Kings College Hospital, London, where he underwent emergency surgery for a serious head injury.

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Fotheringham said: "This was a deliberate assault – Pettman ran back and struck a blow that has had devastating consequences for the young man that he hit."
 

© Hawkinge Gazette and Channel Coast News 2012