WHEN another customer took him to task for being rude to a petrol station cashier, a drunken Leamington man headbutted him and punched him in the face.
And at Warwick Crown Court stubborn Anthony Stevenson at first refused to leave the dock as he protested about his sentence after being jailed for 20 months.
The 27 year-old of Crown Way, Lillington, had earlier pleaded guilty to assaulting his male victim causing him actual bodily harm.
Prosecutor Tariq Shakoor said the incident took place at around two in the morning on December 7 last year.
The victim who had been out with friends in Leamington, went to the Shell garage in Clarendon Avenue to get some food, and got into conversation with Stevenson who was there for cigarettes.
But when the man heard Stevenson apparently say something rude towards the cashier, and told him it was not appropriate, Stevenson headbutted him, knocking him to the floor.
As a result of the assault the man had a cut to his eyebrow, a swollen lip and had lost a tooth which has cost him £2,800 in dental work.
When Stevenson, who had previous convictions for assaults and battery, was arrested two weeks later he claimed his victim had said something abusive to him, although he could not remember what.
He said he had been ‘agitated’ by the man and admitted headbutting him.
Colin Charvill, defending, said Stevenson, a team leader with a firm which manufactures car parts, had been out to a Christmas party with colleagues, and took exception to something he believed the man said to him.
