A REDDITCH man who crossed the road to carry out a vicious attack on a stranger, knocking out his victim’s teeth and leaving him with permanent scarring, has been jailed.

Gavin Butters was told by a judge at Warwick Crown Court that his excuse that, for a second time, he was acting out of misplaced loyalty was ‘wearing thin’.

He had pleaded guilty at the court to inflicting grievous bodily harm on Alexander Pitts and common assault on a Stratford night club doorman during an earlier incident the same night.

Butters, 25 of Aldington Close, Redditch, was jailed for two years for his attack on Mr Pitts, with a consecutive two-month sentence for assaulting doorman Vladimir Margjoka.

Prosecutor Steven Bailey said the attack took place in September last year – just a month after a suspended prison term for an earlier offence of inflicting grievous bodily harm had come to an end.

Mr Bailey said that in the early hours of the morning Butters and his girlfriend Adrianna Moore and another couple went to the Caz Bar night club in Stratford.

But his girlfriend took exception to being asked for some ID and became involved in a scuffle with the door staff, during which Butters threw punches at Mr Margjoka.

As the incident, captured by a CCTV camera, spread into the road, Butters tried to pull his girlfriend away, but she broke free and went back towards the door staff before he pulled her away again.

They and their friends then walked away as the police arrived on the scene, and in Guild Street, for no apparent reason, Miss Moore crossed the road and launched an attack on a woman in a group with Mr Pitts.

Butters followed her across the road and launched an unprovoked attack on Mr Pitts, punching him to the face, knocking him to the ground where he was then repeatedly punched or kicked.

As a result of the attack Mr Pitts had two teeth knocked out and had cuts which will leave him with permanent scars.

Butters and his girlfriend were arrested a little later after their route was followed by the CCTV operator.

Mr Bailey added that Butters had previous convictions for violence, and in August 2011 had been sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for two years after punching and kicking another man outside a night club, breaking his jaw in three places.

Lee Masters, defending, said the attack on Mr Pitts had lasted ‘at the most five or six seconds’ and had arisen out of ‘misplaced intoxicated loyalty’ to his partner.

He pointed out that Butters had not initiated the violence outside the night club.

Jailing Butters, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told him: “If you go out and get drunk and assault innocent people in the street at night, then you are in very serious trouble indeed.

“I am told this is misplaced loyalty, but that is wearing thin.

"That is what was said on the last occasion when you were fortunate to be given a suspended sentence.”