A JEALOUS thug with a history of violence stamped on the face of a homeless man so hard that he left his footprint on his fractured cheek. Stephen Walsham, 29, launched a vicious attack on James Robinson in a hostel in Hull just because he saw him sitting next to a former partner in her flat.
Hull Crown Court heard Walsham had been in an "on-off" relationship with Emma Shan, but at the time of the attack on March 9 last year it was off.
A few days earlier, Miss Shan had bumped into Mr Robinson, a former partner, who was "down on his luck" and homeless, and she invited him to stay at her ground-floor flat in a hostel in Westbourne Avenue, west Hull, to help.
They had been out drinking and fallen asleep together on the sofa when they were woken by a banging at the window between 10.45pm and 11pm.
It was Walsham, accompanied by two unidentified men, and he was heard to shout by another resident: "Emma, you ******* slag, I saw you sitting with him on the sofa through the window."
Mr Robinson, who was oblivious to the shouting, opened the door to find out what the banging was about and was confronted by Walsham, who had got in despite security measures at the communal entrance.
He was hit so hard in the chest that he fell to the floor unconscious, and could remember nothing else until he woke up in Hull Royal Infirmary.
A resident recalled hearing a "loud thud", as if someone was falling to the floor, and then "five or six blows in quick succession", Andrew Semple, prosecuting, told the court.
Mr Robinson suffered serious injuries, including a cut to his lip that needed stitches, a cut to his right eye, and a depressed fracture of the left cheekbone.
Paramedics noticed a "distinctive herringbone pattern" that had been left by the attacker's shoe.
When Walsham was arrested police recovered his footwear, which had herringbone-patterned soles.
Both shoes had blood on them and the right shoe also had particles of skin on the sole, which a forensic scientist said was "indicative of forceful contact".
DNA tests showed the chances of the blood not being Mr Robinson's were one in a billion.
The court heard Walsham, of Coltman Street, west Hull, had eight previous convictions for 19 offences, including attacks on his parents, sister and brother-in-law.
Walsham, who was jailed for two years for grievous bodily harm with intent, is already a serving prisoner, having committed another offence of violence on May 13 last year, while he was on bail for the attack on Mr Robinson.
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