Victim of Assault gets £2,000 compensation for criminal injury

A 19-year-old man was ordered to pay £2,000 compensation this week to the man who he injured in a fight by biting off his nose. Judges at Norwich Crown Court sentenced Aaron Piggott to 9 months custody in the hearing yesterday.

A drunken fight outside a Thetford nightclub two years ago ended with Mr Piggott biting his friend, 17-year-old James Sidroy, on the nose following an argument. Mr Sidroy woke up the next morning with the end of his nose missing, and was taken to Addenbrookes Hospital, where he was operated on four times. In one of the operations, Mr Sidroy underwent cosmetic surgery which used part of his ear to reconstruct his nose.

“A moment of madness…”

However, Mr Sidroy did not report his friend to police until about a year later. Since then the youths had become friends again, with Mr Piggott now at university training to be a teacher.

Recorder Simon Spence told the offending youth, “In a moment of madness fuelled entirely through excess drink you bit the nose of a person who had been a close friend,” (East Anglian Daily Times, 2009). He added that, thanks to his drunken actions, Mr Sidroy had needed extensive surgery and been scarred for life.

The youth admitted the charge of unlawfully wounding his friend. He was ordered to pay £2,000 compensation, obey a five-month curfew, and carry out 200 hours of unpaid community service. Mr. Spence suspended Mr Piggott’s 9-month sentence for 18 months.

Exceptional circumstances

Despite Mr Spence pointing out that this sentence could have a bad impact on his future career, the judge suspended the sentence because of “exceptional circumstances” – Mr Sidroys’s delay in alerting the police, the fact that both boys were 17 at the time of the assault, and that they had since resumed their friendship (East Anglian Daily Times, 2009).

Mr Piggott’s advocate said “he has never denied what he did… he knows it is going to have a serious effect on his employment prospects once he qualifies as a teacher,” adding, “he is not going to trouble the courts again,” (East Anglian Daily Times, 2009).