Notorious man jailed for glassing innocent punter in Harrogate pub attack

Kundananjii Gombe, 25, had already been involved in a fight with another man at the Stone Beck pub in Grantley Drive when he walked past an innocent bystander “minding his own business” and glassed him in the side of his face, York Crown Court heard.

The victim, who was named in court, suffered cuts and scratches to the side of his face, said prosecutor Brooke Morrison.

The inexplicable and cowardly attack occurred after Gombe, a man of some notoriety in the town, had a dust-up with another punter in the beer garden which spilled back inside the pub.

He was arrested and charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He admitted the offence, which occurred on March 28, and appeared for sentence today (Thursday, August 25).

Ms Morrison said the victim was enjoying a pint with friends at his local pub on a Friday night when he noticed the lingering presence of Gombe, whom he didn’t know but knew his name.

Gombe suddenly got involved in an “altercation” with another man and they “took it outside into the beer garden”.

“Some time later, (Gombe) and the other man re-entered the pub and the fight continued,” said Ms Morrison.

“(The victim) was stood at the end of the bar with his back to the fight, chatting to the landlord’s partner.

“He was doing his best to ignore the disturbance.

"The defendant walked past to the end of the bar with a glass in his hand and smashed the glass over the left side of his face.

“(The victim) launched himself at the defendant who tried to hit him with the glass (again) but the (two) men were separated by other patrons.”

The victim called police and Gombe was duly arrested. He remained silent when interviewed by cops the following day.

Ms Morrison said Gombe had been drinking but it was unclear how much alcohol he had taken.

Gombe - who was living in Harrogate at the time but has since moved to the Lake District to find work - had 28 previous convictions for 48 offences including battery, affray, burglary, shoplifting and carrying a knife.

His most recent conviction, in December 2020, was for possessing cannabis.

In the knife and affray offence in 2019, he got involved in an argument between a couple and pulled a blade out. He was subsequently jailed.

His solicitor advocate Jane Cooper said Gombe didn’t recall the incident at the Stone Beck.

She said he first appeared before the courts at the age of just 12 and “before he even left the youth courts he was a third-strike burglar”.

She said that Gombe had been in and out of prison and young-offender institutions since the age of 16.

She said that since the pub attack he had found himself a job as a kitchen hand at a gastro pub in the Lake District which was “the first proper job he has ever had”.

But judge Sean Morris told Gombe: “This was an assault on a man who was just having a quiet pint in his local.

"He had nothing to do with you and you had nothing to do with him.

“For no reason whatsoever, you smashed a glass into the side of that man’s head.

"That man could have lost an eye if he had turned sideways. It is unacceptable.”

Mr Morris said the only “appropriate punishment” was an immediate jail sentence “for somebody who goes up to an innocent person who is just minding his own business and gets a glass smashed in his face”.

Gombe, now of Glenridding, Penrith, was jailed for eight months.

He will serve half of that sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.