Man jailed for ‘unprovoked’ knife attack

A 35-year-old man has been jailed for more than seven years after he launched a knife attack on a friend for no reason.

Francis Alexander Campbell was locked up for seven years and four months for the stabbing of Kurtney Johnson in the neck and chest.

Justice Emma Peters said the attack had been carried out in the victim’s home and that the wounds were “significant”.

She added that Campbell had a long criminal record, including for violence, and that he had been subject to a suspended sentence at the time of the 2023 offence.

Peters said Campbell, who knew Johnson well, and another man had visited him and the three had talked and drank.

But she added in her written judgment, “At some point, as Mr. Johnson sat at his bureau, with the defendant standing close by, the defendant launched an entirely unprovoked and inexplicable in which he stabbed Mr Johnson twice … ”

Peters added, “No words preceded or accompanied this attack to give any hint as to the motivation for it.”

Defendant chased

The Grand Court trial, heard without a jury, was told that Campbell ran out of the house after the incident, chased by Johnson.

But Johnson, weakened by loss of blood, gave up the chase and a neighbour drove him to hospital, where he underwent surgery.

Peters said, “The complainant was, by the time of the trial, no longer cooperative with the prosecution and so said nothing about any particular impact upon him of these injuries.

“The men have apparently now reconciled having recently been fellow inmates at HMP Northward.”

Campbell was convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and breach of a suspended sentence.

Peters said the injuries inflicted were of the lower category 2 level, but at the higher end of the scale.

Difficult childhood

She added that she had taken account of Campbell’s difficult childhood and had suffered physical abuse as a child.

Peters highlighted Campbell had also amassed more than 30 convictions and in 2022 was assessed as being at high risk of reoffending.

She said, “While clearly serious and while it was immensely fortunate that his neighbours acted with such alacrity in getting him to hospital, I do not consider that the injuries inflicted are significantly above the level of harm, which is the norm for an offence of wounding with intent.”

Peters said that Campbell committed the offence while he was under a suspended sentence imposed in November 2022 for threats to kill his former partner.

He was jailed for seven years and four months on the wounding charge, plus three months, to run consecutively, on the breach of suspended sentence conditions.