A drunk Hadleigh man who carried out an unprovoked “glassing” attack on a stranger in an Ipswich nightspot has been jailed for 16 months.

Before Ipswich Crown Court was Lisle Mowles, of Clopton Gardens, Hadleigh, who had denied wounding Carl Ball with intent to do him grievous bodily harm on December 24 2016.

The 28-year-old was cleared by a jury after a two day trial earlier this year.

The court heard that before the start of his trial Mowles admitted a less serious charge of unlawfully wounding Mr Ball.

On Thursday, he was jailed for 16 months for that offence.

Sentencing him, Judge John Devaux said the victim of the attack, who had been talking to some friends at the bar, had described the attack as “cowardly”.

He said Mr Ball couldn’t understand why Mowles hadn’t spoken to him if he had a problem.

During Mowles’ trial, the court heard that Mr Ball was standing at a bar in Degero’s in St Nicholas Street during a night out with friends when Mowles got up from where he was sitting and walked over to him and hit him with an object.

“No words were exchanged and to this day the victim doesn’t know why he was glassed in the face,” said Raj Joshi, prosecuting the case.

As a result of the attack, Mr Ball suffered cuts to the top of his eye and below his eye, a cut to the side of the head and a perforated ear drum.

Mr Joshi said that immediately after the attack Mowles had been escorted from the premises by a doorman and he was arrested shortly afterwards by police officers on patrol who saw him covered in blood.

During police interviews Mowles said he had been out with his girlfriend since 6pm that evening and had been drinking vodka and Red Bull.

He told officers he was so drunk he couldn’t remember what happened on the night in question.

After seeing CCTV footage of the incident he accepted he had caused Mr Ball’s injuries.

Jo Eley, for Mowles, said her client had been heavily in drink and was remorseful.

She said it was an isolated incident and involved a single blow.

Miss Eley said Mowles had lost his job as a result of what happened.