An Ipswich man who stabbed his brother multiple times in an alleyway after he made disparaging remarks about their mother has been jailed for four years and six weeks.

Shaun Webber should have been sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court on Friday but the hearing had to be postponed until yesterday after red-faced Norwich prison officials brought the wrong prisoner to court.Instead of producing 23-year-old Webber, the prison service brought a defendant with a similar name who was due to appear via a prison video link for a hearing in another court in the building.

Webber, of Fore Street, Ipswich, had denied unlawfully wounding his half-brother Jamie Webber in an alleyway in Sapphire Close, Ipswich but was found guilty after a trial in January. He admitted being in breach of a 12-week prison sentence suspended for 12-months for criminal damage and harassment.

Sentencing him, Judge Rupert Overbury said Jamie Webber had suffered “extremely serious” injuries in the “sustained” attack and needed emergency treatment at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

It was a determined attack with a potentially lethal weapon,” the judge said.

He said Webber still denied being responsible for the attack on his brother.

In addition to jailing Webber, Judge Overbury made a restraining order banning him from contacting his brother for five years.

He said if there was a reconciliation between the brothers in the future the restraining order could be reviewed by the court.

During the trial, the court heard that Jamie Webber was left needing surgery after being stabbed in the left side of his chest, his right arm, his body, liver and forearms during an attack on July 6 last year.

He suffered complications and spent several days in hospital.

Jamie Sawyer, prosecuting, said the brothers’ mother had been ill in hospital and when Jamie went to visit on July 6, he left because she had apparently been acting strangely and he later referred to her as “a freak”.

After an exchange of calls and text messages, the brothers met in an alleyway behind Jamie Webber’s flat in Sapphire Close and was stabbed by his brother three or four times.

Richard Kelly, for Webber, said the bad feeling between the brothers arose out of “disparaging” remarks made by Jamie Webber about their mother.

Prior to the stabbing the brothers had traded insults and goaded each other.

He accepted the offence was serious but said it had happened in the context of a family dispute during which unkind remarks were made about his mother.