A man who attacked his brother with a meat cleaver during a drunken fight while they were on a training course in Shropshire has been jailed.
Kieran England came to blows with his brother Adam as the pair boozed to celebrate the end of a week-long security training course at Sandford Industrial Park in Whitchurch. They were split up but Kieran England went away and returned with the weapon and his brother suffered injuries including lacerations to his shoulder as he tried to wrestle it from his grasp. England, 32, from Lancashire, admitted grievous bodily harm at a previous court hearing and appeared at Shrewsbury Crown Court, where he was jailed for 15 months.
Mr Iain Simkin, for England, said: “He accepted the fight began and that he threw the first blow.
“He bit his brother, and at some point he re-appeared with a meat cleaver. It is accepted that he was cut while he was trying to get it out of his brother’s arms.”
Mr Simkin said his client had recently enrolled on a plumbing course and was looking to better himself to support his partner and four young children. The brothers had not spoken since the incident, the court was told.
Sentencing him, Judge Peter Barrie said: “This occurred while the two of you were staying away on a training course.
“At the end of the week, when it’s clear that both of you were having a certain amount of drink to celebrate the ending of that week’s work.
“From the evidence it is clear that there was some very serious ill-feeling between you which led to a scuffle in the common room upstairs at the place which you were staying.
“You went downstairs, fetched a meat cleaver, brought it back to where the scuffle had taken place and where your brother was waiting.
“It is a weapon capable of causing devastating or even fatal injury, and you brought it to the room of the scuffle.
“The scuffle then continued.
“It wasn’t an injury that resulted from an aimed blow, if it had have been it would have been much more serious.
But there is no doubt you were trying to do him some harm.
“This was a drunken fight in which you armed yourself with a meat cleaver and caused nasty wound injuries which required hospital treatment.”