A man convicted of nearly causing his victim to l

A man convicted of nearly causing his victim to lose an eye,
and who was already subject to a 15 month suspended sentence for
another assault, was jailed for only 30 months at Isleworth Crown
Court today (Tuesday) and is likely to be free inside 18 months.

His victim, Hillingdon electrician Curt Fox, 29 is likely to
be a hospital out-patient for the rest of his life, must wear dark-
glasses and has only blurred ‘finger counting’ vision remaining in his
left eye.

Stephen Beeks, 23, unemployed, of Derly Rd, Southall, was
found guilty by the jury of intending to cause Mr Fox grievous bodily
harm.

He had a long record for violence and motoring offences and the
15 months suspended sentence for assault causing actual bodily harm,
was imposed only in February for punching another man in the eye.

Jailing Beeks Judge Birks told him: ‘This was a viscious,
premeditated and callous assault on a young man who struck me as being
as harmless as any young man could be’.

The fifteen months was not
added to the sentence, but activated to run concurrently.

On the evening of April 30, the girl who has since married
Beeks, telephoned her former boy-friend, Mr Fox, in a distressed
state.

He went to see her at the Thorncliffe Hotel, a bed and
breakfast place in Heston, said Miss Jacqueline Samuel, prosecuting.

‘He knocked on her door and it was opened and he was
immediately punched in his left eye with a clenched fist’ said
counsel.

‘He was sent reeling against the wall, blood dripping from
his eye’.

‘Not content with the injury he had already caused, the
defendant continued to hit him in the eye and about the head and then
tried to head-butt him.

The unfortunate Mr Fox cannot remember how
many blows there were’, said counsel.

Dr Walid Soussan, an opthalmic surgeon from Hillingdon
Hospital, said the cornea of the eye was ‘sliced’ and the lens and
part of the ‘jelly’ that fills the eye, were lost.

Mr Fox had to be transferred to another hospital for a corneal
graft operation and ‘because of pressure which builds up in the eye
and because of the possibility of rejection of the donated cornea, he
is likely to have to attend out-patients for the rest of his life’
said the doctor.

.

Mr Fox’s parents, with whom he now lives at Hambledon Close,
Hillingdon, were in court during the two day trial and although
appearing shocked at the light sentence, declined to comment.

Beeks, who admitted the lesser offence of causing grievous
bodily harm but denied intent, had been in custody since his arrest on
May 1.

In that time he has married his girl-friend Janet Beasley who
has a son by Mr Fox over whose maintenance Beeks was said to have been
angry.

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