Man told victim: 'I'm a trained cage fighter'

25-year-old John Gerard McClements appeared at North Antrim Magistrates Court in Coleraine on Wednesday of last week.

He attacked a man after going back to a house after being out at a night club last November.

The court was told that McClements told the injured party to “Stop disrespecting me” before he said he was a “trained cage fighter” and then launched a vicious attack.

The injured man said he received an upper cut punch to the face before being pinned to the floor by McClements and repeatedly punched on the face and as he rolled up into a ball and pleaded for the defendant to end the attack McClements kept on kicking him and the assault only stopped when a woman came into the room.

The incident happened around 4am on November 12 last year.

A prosecutor told the court that McClements asked if he could wait for a taxi and the assault occurred a short time later.

McClements was arrested at 6.30am and there was blood on his clothes and on his knuckles.

The defendant initially told police that if people start swinging punches at him he would defend himself and later during a police interview he repeated his claim that the injured party swung a punch at him that he was defending himself but police could see no injuries on the defendant.

McClements later admitted to police he may have punched the injured party more than once but denied pinning the man to the floor.

In September this year McClements was jailed following an attempted robbery at Finvoy Post Office earlier this year.

On that occasion, when he appeared at Antrim Crown Court, McClements pleaded guilty to one charge of attempted robbery.

That court heard McClements attempted to rob the Post Office on January 6 and in the same incident damaged a pane of glass belonging to a door in the property.

McClements was told he had to serve 18 months in prison followed by a period of one year and 10 months on licence when he is released.

At North Antrim Magistrates Court last week his solicitor made reference to the Post Office incident. He said the Crown Court Judge was impressed by the steps McClements had voluntarily taken to address the background issues in his life which were causing him to offend.

The solicitor said the attempted Post Office robbery was the “most ham-fisted affair” because his client knew the Postmistress who recognised him straight away.

He said McClements was remorseful for causing any distress to the postal worker whom he said was not actually physically injured.

McClements was given a six months sentence for the assault on the man which will not interfere with his release date as he has still 16 months to do on the attempted robbery charge.