A booze-fuelled fight between two friends outside a pub ended with one stabbing the other, leaving him in a coma for more than two weeks.

Wayne McClatchie, 29, of Salisbury Road, Carshalton, was sentenced to six years in prison for the attack on Darren Jones in October last year.

Mr Jones, 44, was stabbed three times in the neck following a row which began in the Windmill pub in Wallington, Croydon Crown Court heard today (March 23).

McClatchie, who told police he had drank 18 cans of "strong lager" and smoked eight cannabis joints, was drinking in the Stafford Road pub with brother Martin and mother Maxine on October 8 when Martin McClatchie made an upsetting remark to Mr Jones' girlfriend.

Mr Jones, in defending his girlfriend's honour, hit Martin McClatchie in the face but that was seemingly the end of the skirmish. The two brothers returned to their mother's flat but police were called by a neighbour as the group were so drunk they couldn't get into the building, the court heard.

An hour later Mr Jones walked past the flat with his girlfriend only to be confronted by Martin McClatchie and a fight ensued.

Wayne McClatchie followed his brother down the stairs of the flat, into the street armed with a kitchen knife, and was hit by Mr Jones before he stabbed him three times in the neck.

Recorder of Croydon Warwick McKinnon told McClatchie: "There was absolutely no reason to go down and respond to the aggression. It was a huge mistake. The second huge mistake was before you left the flat, to put a small knife in your pocket."

Darren Jones was in hospital for seven weeks following the attack, two-and-a-half of which were spent in a coma.

A victim impact statement read out in court by prosecutor Anthony Heaton-Armstrong described how Mr Jones had not been able to work since the stabbing and he was "so disabled he could not lift up his grandchildren."

The court heard how McClatchie had previous convictions for attacking a man with a bike chain and padlock, as well as an assault on a women believed to be his mother.

In sentencing McClatchie for grievous bodily harm, Judge McKinnon said: "You are a violent man quite unable to control an inbuilt propensity towards violence."