Thursday 1 October 2015 12:48, UK
An amateur footballer has been jailed for a year for intentionally breaking an opponent's leg.
Nathaniel Kerr, who has played for Rotherham United, pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm on Stuart Parsons while playing for Longsight pub team AFC Gold Cup during a Stockport District Sunday League game in August last year.
Parsons needed a pin and plate in his ankle after it was broken in two places following a two-footed lunge by Kerr two minutes into the first game of the season.
Kerr had become annoyed after a foul on one of his fellow players by one of Parsons' team-mates early in the game.
After committing the foul on Parsons, Kerr turned to the man who committed the original foul and said: "I did this because of you", Justin Hayhoe prosecuting told Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court.
The match was abandoned as an air ambulance came to Mr Parsons' aid and Kerr was arrested several weeks after the incident and was later charged with wounding with intent by police.
He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of causing grievous bodily harm at an earlier hearing.
After sentencing, Parsons said: "I'm over the moon with the sentencing; the last year has been really difficult dealing with everyday things.
"It has been really difficult learning to walk again after being assaulted on a football pitch. Doing general daily things has been a struggle, struggling to sleep with everything going through my mind all the time of what's going to happen today [at court] and reverting back to the sentencing I'm very pleased with that."
Andrew Scott, defending Kerr, said: "He accepts he assaulted Mr Parsons.
"It is being suggested he went out onto that field to injure someone, that is simply not the case. It is a shame that it is because of his actions in a game which has been such an integral part of his life, and which he has grown up loving, that he finds himself in this situation.
"It is with no disrespect to the complainant that I say this has also had a great impact on him."
Judge Stuart Driver QC said: "This wasn't a late or misjudged tackle in a football game.
"We are talking about an assault where one man flew through the air and stamped both of his feet on another man's leg, intentionally, albeit in the heat of the moment, causing him serious injury."
