A MAN WHO stabbed his former partner’s teenage son in the stomach after an argument about drinking in the home has received a partially suspended sentence.

Keith Harris (42) of Canon Lillis Avenue, Seville Place, Dublin, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm and production of an article at Kevin Barry House, Coleraine Street, Dublin, on 30 August 2016.

He was convicted by a jury after a trial on 21 November 2018.

Judge Pauline Codd sentenced Harris to four and a half years imprisonment with the final six months suspended providing he keep the peace and be of good behaviour and follow the directions of the Probation Service for a period of six months upon his release.

Detective Garda Rory O’Connor told Diane Stuart BL, prosecuting, that on the morning in question Sabrina Hutch woke up in her home to find her then partner Harris drinking and asked him to leave the house.

He went upstairs and Hutch heard him roaring and shouting at her son Darrell, who was aged 18 at the time. She saw Harris point his finger in her son’s face and he threw a punch at Harris in response.

Harris then pulled a knife from his tracksuit bottoms and jabbed it into Hutch’s stomach around his belly button area. He fled the scene and was discovered by gardaí asleep in a nearby flat later that morning.

Detective Garda O’Connor agreed with Pieter Le Vert Bl, defending, that Harris had been drinking heavily that day due to his and Hutch’s infant child being treated in hospital following a premature birth three weeks prior.

Le Vert said his client had no memory of the incident but accepted the verdict of the jury. He said Harris was assaulted twice between the incident and the trial and that on one occasion he had been anointed by a priest due to his injuries.

Harris has 18 previous convictions, including convictions for public order offences and possession of drugs. He has no previous convictions for violent crimes.

Judge Codd said that Harris “is lucky that Mr Hutch did not bleed out at the scene” and commended the work of the ambulance service.

She said that the incident fell at the highest range of offences of this nature due to Harris choosing to bring a concealed knife upstairs with him. She said it was clear that the knife was not a weapon of defence in this case but a weapon of attack.

Judge Codd said he deserved credit for accepting the verdict of the jury and said she noted that there had been “a number of episodes of violence” in his life.