Man helps high street stab victim - and then gets jailed

The act of kindness helped to put Junaid Ali in jail for two and a half years.

The 21-year-old was motoring down West Bromwich High Street in his mother's car when flagged down by people at the scene of the incident, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

He realised that the teenage victim appeared to have been seriously wounded and immediately drove him to Sandwell General Hospital for emergency treatment on June 30 last year.

The registration number of the car was recorded by CCTV cameras and it was traced by detectives investigating the stabbing who arrested Ali because of apparent inconsistencies in the version of events given by various witnesses.

The officers also searched the home of the university graduate and found a stun gun disguised as a torch hidden inside a knotted sock in a bedside cabinet, revealed Mrs Sati Ruck, prosecuting.

Bank worker Ali, whose only previous conviction was for a motoring offence, had bought the potentially lethal weapon while on holiday with friends in Turkey ten months earlier.

Mr James Doyle, defending, said: "He knew it was a stun gun, foolishly bought it in an act of bravado and even more foolishly did not get rid of it. He cannot articulate why he kept it but it was not seen as a useful bit of weaponry.

"He never intended to use it, there is no suggestion that it had been used and there was no charger to power it up for future use.

"He had no idea of its power until told by the police."

Ali from Fitzguy Close, West Bromwich admitted possession of the stun gun, an offence which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years jail unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Mr Doyle argued: "The court has to be mindful of the need to deter people from acquiring such weapons but in the circumstances of this case a five year sentence would be disproportionate.

"The youth he picked up and took to hospital had been stabbed eleven times.

"I do not know if he literally saved his life, but he did that young man a good service."

Judge Nicholas Webb decided that the public-spirited action of the defendant in taking the injured youth to hospital created the exceptional circumstances required for him to halve the prison term to two-and-a- half years.

He explained: "He knew that it was a stun gun.

"It was capable of discharge and could have been lethal.

"But he was caught in a chain of events that included him showing a significant degree of public-spiritedness."