by Keith Hunt

A thug who stabbed two men after taking himself off powerful drugs for depression has been jailed for five years four months.

Kieran Dack knifed Robert Askew in the stomach, leaving him with a serious wound, and Stephen Evans in the leg.

Mr Askew needed an operation to repair his stomach wall and a judge said he must have thought he was going to die.

Dack, of Quebec Avenue, Westerham, admitted two offences of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. He denied aggravated burglary and the charge was left on the court file.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the 30-year-old was annoyed his ex-girlfriend Jodie Wingrove was seeing his friend Mr Askew, even though he had ended the relationship.

"It was none of your business," said Judge Jeremy Carey. "What is clear is it seems to have triggered your quite extraordinary and criminal behaviour and it would probably not have done but for the fact that you decided to come off the quite powerful anti-depressent medication you had been on for some months, believing you were able to do so, which you plainly were not.

"In the course of the next few days you built up a head of steam of indignation and anger and wholly illogical overreaction to what happened in relation to Robert Askew and Jodie Wingrove that you went out of control."

Dack went to Mr Askew’s home in Hollingworth Road, Westerham, on December 9 last year and launched the terrifying attack in front of Miss Wingrove.

The judge said both victims could have lost their lives. Mr Evans saw blood pumping from his leg and feared he would die from a severed artery.

Both had made good recoveries.

Judge Carey said, however, he had decided Dack did not present such a danger that either a life sentence or indeterminate term should be imposed.

"You know how these courts must regard the use of knives used in public, let alone in the home of the victim," he told Dack. "Your case is a very serious one."