In court:
Man stabbed boy with insulin pen meant for diabetics

A MAN who stabbed a teenager with an insulin pen meant for diabetics has escaped jail.

Jason Bale stuck the device into the stomach of the 15-year-old, who had to be taken to hospital where he stayed overnight for his blood sugar to be monitored.

Bale, 23, of Windsor Street, had previously pleaded guilty to assault and was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months.

Prosecutor Iain Willis told Warwick Crown Court how, last September, the 15-year-old was with a group of friends near an alleyway in Murray Road at around 8pm.

One of the girls in the group went into the alley and some of her friends shouted to her just as Bale was cycling past, and he thought they were shouting at him.

He went over to them demanding to know what they had said and became angry when one of them replied he had not said anything.

The rest of the youngsters ran off, leaving the 15-year-old by himself with Bale, a diabetic, who pulled out an insulin pen.

"He pushed the top of it to expose the needle and stabbed (the boy) in the stomach with it," Mr Willis told the court.

Seeing what had happened, a nearby shopkeeper called the police, and Bale was still there when officers arrived, as were some of the boy’s friends who had returned and were shouting about what Bale had done.

There was some concern for the boy who was taken to hospital where he was kept overnight amid fears he may have received a dose of insulin, although his blood sugar remained stable.

The court heard Bale had previous convictions for public order offences, robbery and having an offensive weapon, and in October was given a community order for common assault.

David Everett, defending, said: "This is a matter which he does not remember fully.

"What he remembers is he had been drinking and was going home through an alleyway and heard some shouting and swearing which he believed was aimed at him."

He pointed out there had been a gap in Bale’s offending, but he had started drinking heavily again at a time when he had separated from his partner and was living at a pub where his mother worked.

And he said he was getting his life back under control with the help of the Recovery Partnership charity.

Judge Robert Orme told Bale: "You are making good progress on an order which was made a month after this offence, and I hope you continue to cooperate with the order.

"What you did was potentially very serious. If you had had insulin in that pen which had been injected into your victim, I would have had to deal with it as being very much more serious and you would have been going to custody."

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