When Neiko St Leo was denied entry for smashing his vodka bottle on the floor he took it out on staff at Proud nightclub, knocking the supervisor’s phone from her hand and stabbing a bouncer with a small knife
A man who threw scaffolding at police during the London riots stabbed a Proud bouncer in the bum after he was refused entry for being drunk. Neiko St Leo, 29, of Daling Way, Bow, drank half a bottle of Vodka before rolling up to the nightclub at Embankment just before midnight on April 28 2023, Southwark Crown Court heard on Thursday, January 11.
After security guards heard the sound of him smashing his bottle on the floor, a supervisor told the group they would have to get a refund for their tickets because they were drunk and shouting. Furious St Leo responded by calling her a ‘f**king b**ch’ and knocked her phone out her hand, prosecutor Max Hardy told the court.
A bystander reacted by punching St Leo in the face, but when the former amateur boxer swung back he missed and other clubbers cried ‘What are you doing?’ After around five security guards began attacking him, apparently throwing barriers at him, St Leo picked up a small lock knife he had dropped on the pavement while waiting outside.
After threatening door staff with the knife, St Leo stabbed one of the bouncers in the bum. “He walked five to 10m and felt blood on his side,” Mr Hardy said. Later after St Leo was arrested he told police officers he had ‘become vexed’ because ‘security staff were just looking for a reason not to let him in’ and claimed it was ‘self-defence’.
The victim was left unable to sleep and out of work, no longer able to do martial arts training, and struggling to shower. “I felt ashamed about being stabbed,” he said in an impact statement.
St Leo told his probation officer ‘the female was being quite rude towards him’ which caused him to knock the phone from her hand. “I felt I was under assault,” he said.
The court heard how St Leo has previous convictions for throwing scaffolding at a police car during the London riots, affray in 2012, assaulting a police officer in 2013, and knife possession in 2015.
Defence counsel Sam Parham called for a suspended sentence to allow St Leo to return to his night shifts as a railway maintenance worker, so he can support his young son.
Mr Recorder Alex Hock told St Leo: “Your behaviour that night went from beyond stupid to dangerous. No-one going about their work should be subjected to the kind of violence you subjected [the victims] to. The law rightly passes serious sentences on those who conduct themselves as you did.”
However, Recorder Lock resolved to give St Leo a 23 month sentence suspended for two years. “I do not expect to see you in the criminal justice system again,” he added.
Source – My London
