'Highly dangerous' drunk celebrated in street after stabbing innocent taxi office customer 9 times

A dangerous drunk with a long history of knife convictions stabbed another man nine times on a Redcar street.

Adam Leonard, 33, launched a frenzied attack after "luring the man" outside the taxi office, where they were both separately waiting for lifts home in the early hours of Easter Sunday. Leonard gestured to his victim to follow him outside, and the man left the taxi office on Redcar High Street.

Within seconds, Leonard stabbed him five times in the chest and four times in his back. The victim's left lung was pierced and both of his lungs collapsed. He was rushed to hospital with life threatening injuries.

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On Thursday, a judge at Teesside Crown Court said that Leonard's behaviour that night was "distinctly odd and rather bizarre." Judge Richard Thomas said that Leonard "had taken some sort of exception to (the victim)" who he didn't know at all.

"More then once" Judge Thomas said, referring to CCTV footage, "you moved away from the taxi office, but you kept returning and provoking him." The attack was only partially captured on CCTV because a street sign blocked the camera on the High Street.

Leonard, of Park Court in Redcar, was found guilty of wounding with intent and to the possession of a bladed article, during a trial last month. The jury found him not guilty of an original charge of attempted murder.

Leonard claimed that he had used a pen knife in the attack, which was on his keyring along with his house keys. But the judge said that he "totally rejected" that after hearing evidence from the doctor who operated on the victim. The doctor said that one of the stab wounds was 30cm deep.

The knife has never been found. Leonard was captured "celebrating" on CCTV after the attack. He fled to South Yorkshire and was arrested two weeks later.

In a statement read out to the court, the victim said that he had no recollection of what happened in the early hours of March 31, after he had left his home in Guisborough for a night out in Redcar. He said: "This attack was so horrifying, it is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

"In addition to my the traumatic injuries, I feel like I am a shell of the person I used to be. I have been referred for trauma therapy. I dread leaving the house in case I am attacked. On one occasion I felt so low, I thought about taking my own life."

The victim said that his employer provided him with mental health support, but that he later lost his job after suffering a panic attack.

Before he was sentenced, Judge Thomas read out a list of Leonard's previous convictions. He was released from his last prison sentence three years before this latest attack - after serving two years for attacking his brother with a machete.

He was jailed for six years in September 2013, for a robbery where a lone shopkeeper was battered with a baseball bat. As a teenager, Leonard racked up convictions for the possession of a knife and affray. In 2009, he committed a robbery and arson.

"These offences" the judge told Leonard, who listened on video link from Durham prison, "speak of your highly dangerous and repetitive use of a bladed article. I am passing an extended sentence to protect the public."

Leonard was handed a 17-year sentence which is made up of 14-years in prison and three-years on extended licence in the community. He will serve two-thirds of the prison term.

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