Man sentenced for GBH after biting Turkish man

News site Somerset Live reports on the sentencing of a man who racially abused a Turkish national in Yeovil before pinning him down and biting his nose.

Dale Ashford, 32, was out of prison on license when the incident happened on 6 June. He was refused entry at a JD Wetherspoon in Yeovil town centre, where staff knowing he was on curfew, urged him to return home.

Ashford carried on in the town centre where he came across Mehmet Ali Karaaslan, a Turkish national who had lived in Yeovil for several years.

Ashford shouted racial slurs at Karaaslan before the two men got involved in a fight, throwing punches at one another. When Karaaslan fell into the road, Ashford pinned him to the ground and bit him on the nose. Karaaslan required reconstructive surgery and has been “scarred for life” as a result of the assault.

Ashford was arrested by police and gave a “no comment interview”. He was due to stand trial at Taunton Crown Court this week but changed his  plea before his trial was due to commence.

Derek Perry, mitigating for Ashford, told the court his client was “deeply ashamed” of the racist language he used.

Ashford pleaded guilty to racially aggravated wounding occasioning actual bodily harm.

Judge David Ticehurst handed Ashford a 30 months jail sentence. He told Ashford “You are now 31 years old and your first offence as committed when you were 13 years old. For 18 years you have been offending. You have been arrested, you have been imprisoned.”

He said if Ashford didn’t clean up his act, he would spend “more of his life in prison than out of it.”