AN ex-student who knocked a man out during a brutal attack in a Worcester nightclub was spared jail and will not even have to wear an electronic tag.

Jake Toriyen was a student at the University of Worcester when he laid into a drunk man who bumped into him by accident in Alexander's nightclub in New Street, Worcester. However, the 21-year-old personal trainer, then living in the city's Henwick Road, asked not to have a tag as it would be obvious to his clients during his online training sessions. He was handed a suspended sentence and placed on the doorstep curfew by Judge Jim Tindal at Worcester Crown Court on Monday.

The curfew was imposed at a time when everyone is in lockdown anyway because of the Covid-19 pandemic. "You have to wear gym kit and it would be perfectly obvious if you were wearing a tag which would make it very difficult for your young and growing business," said the judge.

He added: “I’m trusting you because I’m directing you don’t have an electronically monitored tag. Of course I perfectly realise that at the moment (during lockdown) a curfew may seem like a perfectly academic exercise.” However, he argued that the curfew would ‘come into its own’ once lockdown was relaxed, the tier system returned and people began to socialise again.

The savage attack on Paul Monnes, captured on the club’s CCTV, happened on March 17, 2019. Mr Monnes, who had to be immobilised on a spinal board, has no memory of the attack. Toriyen who claimed he had PTSD after he was attacked when he was 11 and argued he was acting in self-defence was unanimously convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm by a jury last November. Andrew Davidson, prosecuting, said the victim was ‘plainly drunk’ and had bumped into Toriyen ‘on a couple of occasions’ before the attack. “It’s then that the defendant lashes out and strikes Mr Monnes to the side of the back of the head three times with quick, rapid-fire punches before he dealt an uppercut with such force it rendered him completely unconscious” said Mr Davidson.

When Mr Monnes left the club he spoke to his partner and ended up going to Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester because of his injuries, spending about 10 hours there. “There was a suspicion there was a spinal injury but there was not. He had bruising to his right eye and his forehead and quite significant swelling to the right side of his face. He suffered amnesia as a result of the incident,” said Mr Davidson. He also needed dental work - a wisdom tooth had to be extracted after it became twisted and pushed into the gum. Ten days after the attack Toriyen was arrested, answering no comment to police questions. The victim said the assault had exacerbated his anxiety and depression. “He was having nightmares about being assaulted” said Mr Davidson.

Mr Monnes was forced to take two weeks off work because of his injuries. The victim said in a statement: “My jaw and cheek was hurting and I felt it was hanging off.”

His defence barrister said Toriyen had ‘genuine empathy and remorse’ for the effect upon the victim. “He deeply regrets it,” he said. Toriyen, who had no previous convictions, was said to be heavily involved in charitable outreach work. The personal trainer makes £8,000 per month gross but that only effectively covers the expenses of his growing business.

Judge Jim Tindal said: “As I may well have said to the jury, this is a very unusual case. What appears to have happened is that Mr Monnes was dancing in a slightly drunk, slightly foolhardy way as people tend to do - much like most of the other people in the CCTV were. For no particular reason at all the red mist descended upon you. This was not a one-off punch. Even after he went down you went in for the last punch which was a particularly violent thing to do.”

The judge said the victim developed not only a serious physical injury but a serious psychological injury as a result of the attack which has ‘cast a shadow over him since’. He imposed an eight month prison sentence suspended for two years, placed Toriyen, now living in London, on a three month curfew and ordered him to pay £2,500 compensation to the victim. The curfew will run between 8pm and 6am.