Club attacker's sentence increase

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A man who carried out a "frenzied" knife attack on a nightclubber after mistaking him for someone else has had his jail term increased by three years.

Simeon Martin, 28, from Grangetown, Cardiff, stabbed Mubarak Duali, 22, with a butterfly knife 20 times.

He was jailed at Cardiff Crown Court in November after admitting wounding with intent. He had been cleared by a jury of attempted murder.

Three appeal court judges increased his term from five to eight years.

His original sentence had been adjudged too lenient by the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC.

The criminal appeal court in London heard that Martin had been stabbed by a Somali man in an attack in the summer of 2008 and had required hospital treatment.

This was a horrific attack, by a man wielding a knife and intending to do really serious harm. The victim was lucky to survive name here

His lawyers told the court he was still bearing the mental scars of that stabbing and reacted as he did because of post traumatic stress disorder when he mistook Mr Duali for his attacker at a Cardiff nightclub and was engulfed by a "red mist".

Mr Duali suffered life threatening injuries during the "frenzied lengthy and horrific attack" last January.

But, pointing to Martin's "unique mitigation", his legal team insisted his sentence was not too short for a crime that was "utterly out of character".

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge was sitting with Mr Justice Penry-Davey and Mr Justice Irwin in the appeal court hearing.

Lord Judge said: "There is genuine evidence that this offender had been a victim himself and that seems to have played a major part in the judge's sentencing exercise.

Appropriate sentence

"However it was plain that this was a revenge attack, although the victim had not been in any way involved in the earlier incident involving the offender.

"When given a knife, he waited until his intended victim was vulnerable to his attack.

"The attack went on long after his victim went to the ground because of the attack. The stabbing went on and on.

"We are quite willing to accept that, had it not been for the previous attack, the offender would not have acted like this.

"But this was a horrific attack, by a man wielding a knife and intending to do really serious harm. The victim was lucky to survive.

"Five years was not an appropriate sentence in this case - the appropriate sentence is eight years imprisonment," the judge concluded.