HARRISON:FOOTBALLER SPARED JAIL FOR STILETTO SHOE ATTACK ON BUS PASSENGER

A talented young footballer who bashed a bus passenger over the head with a stiletto shoe was spared jail.

Conor Harrison, 20, attacked Shaine Connell after being falsely accused of calling the victim’s girlfriend a ‘fat slag.’

Harrison, who plays for Molesley FC in Surrey, left Mr Connell with a two-centimetre cut to his scalp.

The fight was part of a mass brawl on the top deck of the N44 night bus in Sutton High Street, Surrey, on July 18 last year.

Judge Timothy Pontius QC told him: ‘I accept that you originally became involved when you may have been falsely accused of making an insult and it may well be that at one stage you were trying to avoid trouble and act as a peacemaker.

‘However there came a time when you completely over-reacted to the situation and grabbed a high-heeled shoe.

‘You struck a blow to the head of your victim. It was clearly a painful blow. This was done in the early hours in a public situation, on a bus.

‘It could have escalated into much greater violence.’

Harrison pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm on the day his trial was due to start.

He was sentenced to a community order with 130 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £200 towards prosecution costs.

The judge added: ‘I hear you are a talented young footballer with great ambitions in that area.’

Harrison, of [72] Mantlet Close, Streatham Vale, southwest London, also hopes to study plumbing.

His barrister Ian Austin said: ‘His initial role in this was trying to calm the situation down.

‘He got in between the individual who called the woman a fat slag to calm the situation down.

‘It is a case of mistaken identity. That’s how the situation was started.’

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