A MAN and his girlfriend were punched and bitten by a drunken man as they travelled on a train, Hull Crown Court heard.
Passengers were left horrified when David Mannifield, 42, unleashed his drink-fuelled attack on Matthew Wilkinson and Lyndsay Stow.
Mr Wilkinson was left with a fractured jaw and Miss Stow a bloody lip after Mannifield, who was with ten other men, repeatedly punched them in the unprovoked assault.
Prosecuting, David Hall, told the court how the couple were on their way back to the city onboard the 19.57 train on April 19 this year, after enjoying a day out in York.
Mannifield, who knew Mr Wilkinson from school, accused him of being involved in a bar fight years ago.
Mr Hall said: "He kept harping on about an incident in a pub that happened years ago and attributing blame to the complainant.
"The defendant kept calling Miss Stow darling, it became annoying. He would go back to his group and then come back to the couple.
"He was winding the complainant up.
"For no reason, the defendant then bit hard on Mr Wilkinson's finger. His girlfriend jumped up and started arguing with the defendant, who got up off the seat and punched Mr Wilkinson in the mouth.
Miss Stow tried to get in between the men, telling Mannifield there were children on the carriage and to stop fighting, but he then launched his fists at her.
"She got punched about three times," said Mr Hall.
"As they got off the train, Mannifield, of Cheadle Close, west Hull, was saying 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry' but using inverted commas."
Three days later, Mr Wilkinson was struggling to eat as his jaw was so painful.
He went to hospital, where an X-ray confirmed he had suffered a misplaced fractured. Miss Stow suffered a swollen lip and bruising around her mouth.
In mitigation, Patricia Doherty said Mannifield was truly remorseful about the assault.
She said: "He would like to, through me, apologise to all the other rail passengers and both complainants for his behaviour.
"He accepts he had been drinking and shouldn't have reacted by using violence, even though the complainant was giving him verbal abuse."
Sentencing Mannifield to six months in prison, Judge Michael Mettyear, said: "Many of us put up with train journeys where there is some drunken idiot making a nuisance out of himself. It is an absolute pain. It is a misery for people.
"It must have been awful for the other people on the train, going about their business. There were children there as well.
"For them to see how you were behaving is absolutely disgusting, unforgivable. You turned to actual violence and you hit this man a number of times and he suffered a fractured jaw.
"The lady who was with him was terribly upset, terribly distressed at witnessing her boyfriend being treated this way and then she too suffered the indignity of being assaulted."
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