Kebab shop worker stabbed in the face in '˜cold revenge attack'

Shawket Mahmood had recently started working at Efes Kebab in London Road, Fratton, when drunken Lewis Williams and his pal flung ‘vile’ racist abuse at the dad-of-one and staff, saying ‘go back to your own country’.

CCTV playing in court showed Mr Mahmood ejecting Williams – who fled to a friend’s house only to return and stab Mr Mahmood 30 seconds later with two knives.

A judge jailed Williams, 29, of Wingfield Street, Buckland, for nine years and four months for the stabbing.

Prosecutor Matthew Lawson told the court: ‘The defendant having armed himself with two knives returned immediately to the kebab shop, seen on CCTV, running towards Mr Mahmood and (a friend) attempted to stop him.

‘The defendant goes past them, attacks Mr Mahmood waving the knives around – he’s been described as waving them around in a an almost windmill like manner.

‘One slashes Mr Mahmood across the face causing a serious injury to his face.’

Williams again ran off but was chased by Mr Mahmood and other staff – with one carrying a knife sharpener to defend himself.

The defendant ran into a parked car, but again slashed Mr Mahmood, cutting him in the leg, as the worker tried to restrain him.

He suffered a 14cm wound extending down the left side of his face, along with multiple cuts to his face.

Speaking in court Mr Mahmood said: ‘This incident has changed all my life.

‘I find it extremely difficult to show my face to people or to my family. Every time I look at myself I feel bad.

‘I can’t stop thinking about it every time I think about it I feel really down and people think very different of me.

‘Now they think we have done something bad or am a criminal or a bad person.’

He added: ‘My son and my partner came to see me the day after it happened, my son looked at me and he was scared he was so afraid to looked at me. It broke my heart.’ The victim suffered double and blurred vision and it is not clear his injuries will heal following the December 11 attack.

Williams had previously bottled a Kens Kebab shop worker in a 2006 revenge racist attack on an Iraqi asylum seeker, and attacked a deputy manager with a table, stamping on his head, at the John Jacques pub after he was banned last December.

After he was restrained, Williams had a ‘broken wrist, extensive bruising and four stitches to his head,’ Hugh French, mitigating, said.

He said ‘some punishment’ had already been inflicted.

Jailing Williams, judge Anne Arnold said: ‘There was a deliberate, cold and calculated decision to go and get knives and to return and inflict this injury.’

The judge said Williams subjected the victim to ‘vile behaviour and racist abuse’.

Williams admitted wounding with intent, and two charges of having an offensive weapon. He got two years concurrent for the knives.