A judge praised a stabber who made threats towards his victim from behind bars for ‘making something of yourself’ since he deferred the man’s sentence.

Aaron Joines, 36, who admitted perverting the course of justice, was commended for addressing the drug addiction that Judge Michael Gledhill KC characterised as the ‘basis of all your trouble’.

Having deferred the stabber's sentence earlier this year with a raft of conditions, on Thursday (June 15) the judge suspended Joines’ term of imprisonment for two years, saying the Banbury man had ‘done well during the deferred sentence’.

Unless he commits further offences or fails to comply with the order, he will not have to serve the 12 month sentence in jail.

Joines was on remand for wounding his mother’s partner when he made a series of calls threatening his victim.

In one call, he said: “Just because I’m locked up doesn’t mean I can’t get – I don’t need to get to him – I’ve got many people out there who will do all that for me.”

He said that he was ‘not bothered’ and warned that when he was ‘out’ of prison there would ‘issues’. “All I’m going to say,” he said after one coded remark.

Oxford Mail: Click here to sign up to the Crime and Court newsletter Click here to sign up to the Crime and Court newsletter (Image: Newsquest)

The defendant was convicted of that stabbing in November 2020, and in December the following year received a two year suspended sentence from Recorder John Hardy KC.

At the time, the judge described the assault as ‘nasty, unprovoked and vicious’, but imposed the suspended sentence in recognition of the fact Joines had done the equivalent of a 26 month sentence on remand and had organised himself a place at a drug rehabilitation facility.

Joines, of Walker Road, Banbury, had been found guilty at Oxford Crown Court in the summer of wounding his mother’s then partner.

The jury heard how the victim and his partner had returned home on November 2, 2020, to find Joines emerging from the house in Rochester Way, Twyford.

He grabbed the man by the throat, telling him: “I want to have words with you.” The victim asked him to calm down.

When Joines released his grip, allowing the victim to turn back, he stabbed him with what prosecutors believed to have been a Swiss Army knife. The victim was left with a 1cm wound.

In a victim impact statement read to Oxford Crown Court in December 2021 by prosecutor Kellie Enever, the wounded man said: “My whole life has been ruined by Aaron.”

Last week, Judge Gledhill told Joines that the subsequent intimidation of his victim had to be marked by a custodial sentence.

“The courts cannot allow people in prison facing criminal charges to intimidate witnesses,” he said, but noted that the sentence could be suspended as a result of his compliance with the terms of his deferred sentence.