A thug who had his face tattooed after his marriage broke up went out to drown his sorrows - and smashed a glass in a Sittingbourne pub customer's face.

Martin Stone, who had abstained from alcohol for seven years, severed an artery when he attacked Danny Bachelor outside the George and Dragon.

Now the 39-year-old, of Invicta Court, Milton Regis, has been jailed for two years after admitting assault causing actual bodily harm - a charge criticised by the judge.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the wound was so bad that both police officers at the scene and then hospital staff had difficulty in stemming the bleeding.

"It is a worrying state of affairs that something as serious as this has not been properly charged," said Judge Jeremy Carey.

"It needs to be understood that it brings the criminal justice system into disrepute. If ever there was an obvious case of wounding this was it.

"Your employers hold you in high regard and your children love you. You have lost your reputation and standing in the community..." - Judge Jeremy Carey

"It is a bad case and it is under-charged. I want that message to go back to the Crown Prosecution Service."

The judge was told Stone was so drunk he had little recollection of the attack.

Prosecutor Edmund Fowler said the victim was with friends in the High Street pub late in the evening on on January 24 when he noticed Stone watching him.

Mr Bachelor was using his mobile phone and leaving the pub when doorman David Hatch saw Stone run over and "swipe" the side of his face with the glass.

Mr Hatch grabbed Stone and took him to the ground. Passing police officers rushed in and restrained Stone.

"Mr Bachelor was bleeding from the temple area," said Mr Fowler. "There was great difficulty in stemming the blood flow. There was a substantial amount of blood loss."

Stitches were inserted in the wound at Medway Maritime Hospital and the victim was able to be discharged.

Craig Evans, defending, said father-of-two Stone, who works for an engineering company, was devastated and suicidal after his wife of 16 years left him in September last year.

Mr Evans told Judge Carey: "You will see the tattoos on his face. They are a reaction to how far he fell into depression. He looks back now with regret at his actions.

"It reflected poor decision making and thinking. He had been abstinent from drinking for seven years."

The judge told Stone, whose facial tattoos include a large spider: "This is another example of how alcohol in the body of an otherwise hard-working and decent man works in a way which leads to serious violence.

"I think you are the sort of man who understands this court has to impose a custodial sentence.

"No other sentence could be appropriate, even if you didn't have a criminal record and hadn't been under the influence of alcohol.

"For reasons you can't explain, you used that glass as a weapon to injure him. You should be worried about that, and I think you are because you have had the good sense to stop drinking since."

It was lucky for Mr Bachelor and Stone that the skill of the medical profession prevented more serious injury.

The judge said the offence was in about as serious a category for actual bodily harm as one was likely to find.

"I am satisfied you are genuinely remorseful and ashamed of yourself," he added. "Your employers hold you in high regard and your children love you. You have lost your reputation and standing in the community.

"I accept you have gone into a downward spiral since the events of September last year.

"It is easy to say these things happen and are difficult to deal with, but drinking and offending is not any kind of way of doing so."

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