TWO men are behind bars for a total of 21 years for a series of violent attacks including stabbings and acid threats.

Vicious attacks included stabbing a man in the mouth with a steak knife and causing multiple injuries with screwdrivers.

Teenagers were also robbed and threatened during a terrifying incident in Bournemouth’s Kings Park where the attackers suggested they were in possession of acid.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard many of the crimes committed were connected to drug dealing in the Boscombe area.

Nicholas David Pike, also known as Nicholas Kelly, 32 and of Palmerston Road, and John Paul Williams, 28 and of Christchurch Road, were sentenced at Bournemouth Crown Court on Friday June 6.

Bournemouth Echo:

Nicholas Pike

Pike was jailed for a total of 12 years for two offences of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Williams was jailed for nine years for one offence of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and 16 months in relation to a robbery at Kings Park, to run concurrently.

Pike was found guilty in December following a trial at Bournemouth Crown Court of stabbing a man on July 16 last year. He was remanded in custody prior to sentencing to stand trial alongside Williams for a second stabbing committed on July 27. However, Pike pleaded guilty at the start of the trial. Williams was convicted in April following a trial at Portsmouth Crown Court.

Bournemouth Echo:

John Williams

On July 16 Pike and another man approached the victim at a flat in Churchill Road in order to lure out a second man they believed was selling drugs on Pike’s patch. The victim refused to help.

At around 11pm that day Pike returned to the address and attacked the victim, a local man aged in his 30s, by firstly beating him and then stabbing him in the mouth and leg with a steak knife.

The second incident involving Pike and Williams occurred on July 27. A local man also aged in his 30s, contacted Pike in order to buy some drugs from him.

The man later discovered the wraps he’d bought were not heroin and crack cocaine as he thought. He located Pike and Williams and challenged them. Williams and Pike attacked their victim and stabbed him five times with what were believed to be screwdrivers.

The victim fled and ran into a local coffee shop to call for help. He sustained stab wounds to his buttocks, abdomen, arms and defensive injuries to his legs and hands.

Following an investigation, Pike and Williams were arrested and charged.

The robbery committed by Williams occurred in July in Kings Park. Williams and his accomplice Aaron Colin Anders, aged 25 and of no fixed abode, approached a group of teenagers - four boys and two girls - threatened them and demanded money. Among the threats made by the men was that they were in possession of acid, but no acid was seen or used.

They made off with a vape smoking device and cash. An attempt was also made to steal a watch and bicycle from another 16-year-old boy but this was unsuccessful.

Anders was jailed for five months for attempted robbery.