Drinker who kicked friend into campfire is jailed

Ellis Youds struck out with his feet and fists in the mistaken belief that his victim and another friend had stolen his mobile phone, Oxford Crown Court heard.

Jurors convicted him on Thursday of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. He’d already admitted the lesser charge of causing grievous bodily harm.

Youds had claimed that he’d kicked his victim into the campfire after being struck in the head by a second man.

Grandpont nature park, Oxford, where the assault took place

The trio had been drinking around the fire at Grandpont nature park, Oxford, on January 18, after spending the day boozing in the city centre.

Believing them to have stolen his mobile phone, he launched the attack on his victim – raining down up to seven punches and two further kicks.

The victim suffered bleeds on the brain, a broken eye socket and other wounds.

Giving evidence in his defence, Youds claimed that he’d ‘felt sick’ when he saw photographs showing the scale of the damage he’d done to his friend.

He was asked by his barrister, Alistair Grainger, what he would say to his victim. Youds replied: “Sorry. I can’t change what happened.”

The remains of the campfire into which Ellis Youds kicked his victim Picture: CPS

Ellis Youds' swollen foot Picture: CPS

“Did you mean to do all of that to him?” Mr Grainger asked. No, he replied.

Prosecutor Matthew Walsh dismissed the suggestion that Youds had been robbed by the two men as ‘nonsense’.

“The only violence used that night was by you when you were drunk and paranoid and angry,” Mr Walsh said. The defendant denied it.

It was suggested to Youds that he had kicked the complainant with such force that he had sprained his ankle. Pictures given to the jury showed his badly swollen ankle as well as bruising to the top of his foot.

But the defendant said that those were pre-existing injuries, saying he had ‘bad tendons’ in his leg.

Mr Walsh scoffed: “You were hobbling around in the field that night with that amount of swelling in your feet?” Yes, he responded – agreeing that he had come out of the fight with ‘barely a mark on him’.

Judge Ian Pringle QC sentenced Youds, of Luther Street, Oxford, to five years’ imprisonment on Thursday afternoon – the day before he turned 24.

Ellis Youds' mugshot Picture: TVP