A PHOTOGRAPHER from Redditch could have lost his sight when a drunken man smashed a wine glass into his face, leaving him with permanent scars around his right eye.

Victim Paul Stringer’s attacker Ethan Cronin was jailed for 21 months after pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court to wounding him during the incident.

Judge Andrew Lockhart QC also ordered Cronin, 25 of Regent Street in Leamington, to pay £300 compensation to Mr Stringer.

Prosecutor Lee Marklew said that in January last year Mr Stringer was with a group of friends in Stratford.

They were in the Cazbar night club in the town centre when he and one of his friends became unhappy about the way Cronin had spoken about two young women in his group.

There was a confrontation between Mr Stringer and Cronin, and they both stood up as words were exchanged.

“The defendant and Mr Stringer ended up pushing and shoving each-other and grabbing each-other’s clothes," said Mr Marklew.

"At one stage the defendant pushed him so hard that he fell on a sofa, whereupon the defendant got on top of him to continue the melee.”

During that part of the incident someone saw Cronin, who had a wine glass in his hand, hit out at Mr Stringer.

But Mr Marklew pointed out that Cronin had entered his plea on the basis that he had hit out instinctively and had no memory of having a glass in his hand at the time.

“His plea is tendered on the basis of an incident that got out of hand and, whilst he plainly intended to cause some injury, he didn’t deliberately set out to cause a wound,” he said.

After being pulled away, Cronin tried to leave the club, but was stopped and restrained by one of the doormen.

Mr Marklew said Mr Stringer was taken to hospital where he needed 10 stitches as well as steristrips for his wounds.

And after his initial treatment his eye was closed and he had to be readmitted to hospital because he had no feeling between his right eyebrow and his hairline.

Nick Devine, defending, argued: “There’s some provocation in this offence which began as a night club altercation over Mr Cronin talking to a young lady and someone else objecting to that.

“There was no premeditation on the part of Mr Cronin. It could be said that what followed was an excessive amount of self-defence.

“Plainly in the course of that he accepts he must have had a glass in his hand and must have issued the single blow which caused these injuries in the heat of the moment.”

Asking for a suspended sentence, Mr Devine said that Cronin is undertaking an apprenticeship, and prison would be ‘devastating’ because it would bring his career to an end.

But jailing Cronin, Judge Lockhart told him: “I have considered very carefully whether I can suspend this sentence; but given that this was violence in a public place in front of others in the early hours of the morning and involving a weapon, it has to be immediate.”