Haslingden thug, 21, who stabbed man in back jailed for four years

6:00pm Friday 16th January 2009

By Chris Hopper

A THUG who wrecked a man’s life when he stabbed him in the back in an unprovoked attack has been jailed for four years and four months.

Unemployed Shumuz Ullah, 21, was sentenced for plunging a knife into the back of Hugh Parker in a Haslingden street.

It left Mr Parker, who had been walking home with his partner, “millimetres” from paralysis and needing emergency surgery to remove the blade which snapped off in the attack.

Doctors said Mr Parker has since made an astonishing recovery, but he said Ullah, of Pine Street, Haslingden, had ruined his life, leaving him needing counselling.

Ullah had been drunk and on cocaine when he knifed Mr Parker, before throwing the broken weapon into the graveyard, court heard. Mr Parker, 30, who lives with partner Anthony Bradshaw, 41, in the town, said: “We had been out for cigarettes at the shop.

“We were walking back up Church Street and then all of a sudden I felt as if I had been thumped in the back. That’s all I thought it was.

“I could feel something really cold in my back and I realised it was a blade. It was still lodged in my back and I couldn’t move it.”

Mr Parker was taken to the Royal Preston Hospital and stayed in for five days while doctors performed emergency surgery.

He added: “They said I was extremely lucky and said it was only 7mm away from going into my spinal cord – then I would have been paralysed.

“When the blade went in I was thinking about ringing my mum and telling her I might die.”

The attack has left him terrified to leave the house and needing counselling. It also led to Mr Parker, who is originally from Fleetwood, considering moving from Haslingden.

The court was told the attack followed previous “trouble” between Ullah and Mr Parker and Mr Bradshaw.

Sarah Statham, prosecuting, said: “We feel that there were homophobic undertones.”

Philip Holden, defending, said Ullah had realised the “gravity of his actions” and had handed himself in.

Sentencing Ullah, who had no previous convictions, to four years and four months in jail, Judge Beverley Lunt said it had been a “cowardly and potentially deadly” attack.

Afterwards, Det Sgt Ben Hodgkinson, from Rossen-dale CID, said: “It sends out a clear message: If you use a knife you will serve a sentence.”

Mr Parker added: “He has wrecked my life but he has wrecked his own too. That’s enough justice for me.”