Kairan Zamaroni jailed for Ipswich Gippeswyk Park stabbing

Sentencing 18-year-old Kairan Zamaroni, Judge Martyn Levett said the case highlighted the dangers of people carrying knives and said it was "one more in the catalogue of violent incidents which blight the streets of local towns".

Zamaroni was riding a mountain bike when he approached the 17-year-old victim in Gippeswyk Park and said: “Was it you who jumped out on my guys?”

The victim, who was on his way to have his hair cut, was confused as he didn’t know what Zamaroni, who he didn't know, was talking about, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Eleanor Sheerin, prosecuting, said Zamaroni had then stabbed the youth in the right side of his stomach causing a laceration to his liver.

Gippeswyk Park in Ipswich (Image: Newsquest)

He managed to contact his mother on his mobile phone and when she arrived at the scene she noted he was pale and sweating and told her he was scared.

Before arriving at the park, the victim’s mother saw Zamaroni cycling away from the park and took a picture of him on her phone.

In a statement read to the court, the victim said the attack on him was unprovoked and resulted in him spending three days in hospital.

He said he thought he was going to die, and he still suffered from nightmares about what happened.

In an impact statement his mother said she was told by a doctor that her son could have died if he’d been stabbed anywhere else.

She said her family had been forced to move because they no longer felt safe in their home.

Zamaroni was jailed at Ipswich Crown Court (Image: Suffolk police)

Zamaroni, of Poppy Close, Ipswich, admitted an offence of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm in November last year and being in possession of a pepper spray in July this year.

Sentencing him to 54 months detention in a young offenders institution and banning him from contacting the victim, Judge Levett described the incident as a revenge attack on an innocent young man for a perceived wrong.

He said: "How many times do I have to say that carrying a knife can kill or seriously injure. Either this message is not getting through to those young persons who decide to carry a knife often as a necessary badge of how important they are, or that message is not stark or blunt enough for it to sink into young persons' minds. 

"Every weapon carried on the street, even if it’s concealed from sight, represents a threat to public safety and public order. 

"Even if a knife is held for bravado or from some misguided sense that it’s for protection, has a risk of the person using it because it takes a moment of irritation, anger or perceived insult or something very trivial like a look, or a mistaken belief that the victim is not a totally innocent bystander for the weapon to be produced and then used so that offences of the greatest possible seriousness follow.

“The use of knives to cause serious injury in public places like our parks, our streets and market towns are causing alarm and distress to innocent young people and ordinary members of the public to the extent that the public spaces may become eerily silent and deserted."

Benedict Peers, for Zamaroni, said his client believed the victim had been involved in a group attack at a friend’s house and had intended to scare him.

He said Zamaroni regretted what he had done.

Mr Peers said that in July this year his client had been the victim of a stabbing in Dickens Road in the town.