A LONDONER who came to Swindon for fresh air and to escape the twin clutches of crime and drugs, was jailed for three-and-a-half years after he smashed a van window and stabbed a man in a revenge attack.

Ian Webb, 20, admitted wounding Robert Peapell in what Swindon Crown Court heard was effectively a vigilante action against another criminal.

Claire Marlowe, prosecuting, said the victim and another man Thomas Bambrick, were picking up a scrapped car from Beatrice Street, when Webb approached calling him Monkey and shouting threats to stab or shoot him.

Mr Peapell told him he was not Monkey, it was his brother Gary who was known by the nickname.

After loading up the car onto Mr Bambrick's truck, the two men attempted to drive away, but were blocked in by an elderly couple's car.

In the meantime Webb, aged 20, took out a sledgehammer and smashed the window next to Mr Peapell.

Then he reached into the cab several times and managed to stab his victim in the upper left arm.

To escape, Mr Bambrick risked toppling the truck by mounting the pavement to get by and drove as far as the Magic Roundabout where the men were able to flag down a police car.

When he was arrested later, Webb, whose address was given as the Coleville Estate, Hackney, was found with two knives on him. The wound to his victim's arm was 1.5cms deep.

Miss Marlowe added that Webb had been convicted in March 2003 for his part in a knife robbery inflicted on a 14-year-old boy in London. Jonathan Simpson, for the defence, said: "The victim was himself very much a criminal."

Although, like everyone else, he was entitled to the protection of the law, it supported his client's contention that Mr Peapell was no angel.

"He could so easily have fought this case and got involved in mud-slinging and used evidence against his victim perhaps in securing an acquittal.

"It is a sign of his maturity that he should fall on the mercy of the court."

He said the defendant's reason for coming to Wiltshire was not to corrupt or taint the area, but to escape a difficult life in Hackney. But he had not been able to fit in. He was able to understand the suffering he had inflicted on his victim and was full of remorse.

Recorder Ian Lawrie told Webb he had made his crime doubly worse by committing it while on licence for a similar offence. "Your actions seem to indicate that you think you are above the law."

He said he would be failing in his duty if he did not send Webb into custody. He sentenced him to three years and six months for the wounding and six months concurrent for causing criminal damage, which he also admitted. He was also given three months, concurrent, for breaching his licence. The defendant was to serve half his sentence before being released on licence.

"The only message I pass to you Mr Webb, is that sentences only ever get longer," added the Recorder.

Tina Clarke