A MAN is facing jail after an argument over a parking space spiralled out of control.

Carl Fricker was convicted of a vicious attack on Adrian White in a Hampshire street.

Mr White was slashed across his ribs with a knife, punched and kicked after complaining to neighbour Leon Elliott about his work van being parked outside his home.

Southampton Crown Court heard how Fricker, 29, drove over to Oak Road, Bursledon, after receiving a call that Mr White had been involved in a heated confrontation with Mr Elliott’s partner Leanne Jenks.

Mr Elliott and Fricker went to confront Mr White but he was not at home, the court heard.

The court heard Mr White received a phone call from his partner Nicole Mintram that two men were shouting and swearing at their door. He immediately returned home.

A scuffle then broke out.

During the trial, Mr White gave evidence behind the curtain and described how he was attacked.

He said: “I didn’t realise I had been attacked with a knife. After a few seconds had passed, I looked at his hand and sawa Stanley knife. It happened quite fast. I had never been in a situation like that before. I was in complete shock.”

The court heard how Mr White was left with a broken jaw, which had plates inserted, and had stitches inserted in a four-inch wound.

Jurors later heard an extract from a 999 call by a distraught Ms Mintram.

They heard: “Please get someone here. We need an ambulance.”

Then she shouted: “He’s been stabbed. There was a fight outside. He’s been stabbed in the ribs.”

Fricker told the court a Stanley knife, which he used for work as a painter and decorator, fell out of his jogging bottoms but denied he had used it to attack Mr White.

Jurors took six hours and 56 minutes to return a majority guilty verdict on Fricker to cries from the public gallery.

They cleared Mr Elliott of the same charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

In court, Mr Elliott, also 29, claimed Mr White was the aggressor in the incident after shouting his partner.

Fricker, of Warburton Road, Southampton, had to be wrestled away by security guards in the dock as he embraced his partner.

He will be sentenced at the same court on August 23.

  • Additional reporting by Rory McKeown