A 25-YEAR-MAN has avoided jail after an attack outside a fast food van in which he told his victim: “I’ll rip your guts out and eat them.”

Lewis Donellan, of Binns Road, Liverpool, pleaded guilty to battery and using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

Prosecutor Angus Robertson said the incident happened in Oxford’s Gloucester Green at about 6.30pm on January 10 last year.

He told Judge Peter Ross at Oxford Crown Court that victim Abdullah Ali was getting food from a fast-food van when he noticed the defendant staring at him.

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The barrister said Donellan approached Mr Ali and asking, “what are you looking at?” before punching him in the face.

His victim was then punched repeatedly, Mr Robertson said, before the defendant chased him into the nearby food van and stood outside shouting threats.

The barrister said Donellan was heard to shout: “This is my country and I’m going to f*** you up”, and “I’ll rip your guts out and eat them”.

Mr Robertson said: “Mr Ali was genuinely scared for his life.”

Harriet Johnson, defending, said Donellan admitted the offences, but still insisted it was Mr Ali who started the confrontation.

She said: “He gets himself into a state where he is convinced he is right and others are wrong.

“He regrets that it took this incident for him to realise how serious that was.”

Miss Johnson added that her client had been signed off work for medical reasons for two years and had mental health problems.

Judge Ross told Donellan on Monday he would make a community order with a curfew requirement for four months and told him to pay £250 compensation, £50 costs and a £60 victims’ surcharge.

He added that if the defendant breached the order “you will come back before me and I will send you into custody.”

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