This is the north Belfast man jailed for four years for an unprovoked screwdriver stabbing on a busy road in broad daylight.
Patrick Deeney attacked and then stabbed Jamie Clarke at least five times in the garden of a house on Skegoneill Avenue in the north of the city. He was sentenced to eight years with four on licence.
Deeney (27) has 68 previous convictions and was handed a three-year sentence for a previous knife attack originally investigated as an attempted murder. He was sentenced to one year in prison, two on licence.
Mr Clarke described standing outside a shop near a bus stop when he was attacked on an early evening in April last year.
“He came from behind so I ran into the garden and that is where I was stabbed. He stabbed in the back and stabbed me in the head. I think there was five in total,” Mr Clarke said.
The 31-year-old believes he lost consciousness at one point but does remember being in ambulance. He remembers a sheet “completely pink” with the colour of blood
Mr Clarke, believes the attack on him had a sectarian element, claiming his attacker shouted: “I hope you die, you orange b*****d”.” He was wearing a Rangers jersey.
Deeney’s long criminal record includes 28 charges, later convictions, after he was sentenced for the previous stabbing.
He was just 21 when he stabbed a man four times outside a block of flats in north Belfast. He also assaulted the man’s 17-year-old girlfriend, including dragging her by the hair to the ground.
The victim was stabbed three times in the body and once in the head in the attack outside Queen Victoria Gardens. He suffered a punctured lung and required staples for the head wound.
Following the stabbing, Deeney returned to the party in the flat where he changed his clothes. He was arrested walking from the rear of the flats, while a blood-stained knife was later recovered. He pleaded guilty to wounding, assaulting the man’s girlfriend and possessing a knife.
While on remand for the attack, Deeney was allowed out to attend the funeral of his brother Fergal, who died of a heroin overdose in August, 2018. He was one of 15 people who died from overdoses in just two months.
