Somerset Eagles manager Danvers Seymour, Jr. is facing three years in jail after he attacked a man in a case of vigilante justice based on what the Crown called ?a hunch?.

However Seymour?s lawyer Craig Attridge promised he would appeal the sentence against his client, touted by many as an irreplaceable youth and community leader who ?made the worst mistake of his life?.

Seymour, 26, of Field View Lane in Sandys, was originally charged with wounding Michael Troy Sandiford with intent and possession of a knife on June 11, 2003. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of wounding.

Assistant Justice Carlisle Greaves sentenced Seymour to three years in prison with a further two years of probation after that, and ordered him to specifically address his issues with anger and drug abuse.

Seymour also received a concurrent sentence of nine-months imprisonment for possession of a knife. Crown counsel Graveney Bannister told the court Mr. Sandiford was working at the Port Royal Gas Station in the afternoon of July 11, 2003 when Seymour entered, asking Mr. Sandiford if he had been at Seymour?s house.

When the victim protested that he did not know where Seymour lived, an argument ensued which quickly escalated into violence.

According to witnesses, Seymour stabbed Mr. Sandiford with a four-inch blade, forcing the victim to pick up a fire extinguisher to use in defence.

The incident was recorded by a surveillance camera, and three witnesses later identified Seymour as being the aggressor.

Mr. Sandiford was hospitalised with stab wounds to his arm. The radius bone in his arm was split and nerves cut, resulting in the loss of movement in Sandiford?s fingers.

?I will always have the physical and the emotional scars of being a disabled person,? he wrote in a victim impact statement. ?My dreams of becoming a fireman or a physical education teacher were taken from me.?

Seymour was on the run for a week until he turned himself in to Police. The knife was found in his home. An antecedents officer said he was not co-operative with authorities. Seymour told detectives he believed Mr. Sandiford was responsible for a brick which was thrown at his house three nights before the incident, and that belief was the reason for the attack.

?This is an offence of wounding, unprovoked, at the victim?s workplace, in broad daylight,? Mr. Bannister said. The attack, he added, ?was motivated by a hunch. He acted irrationally and irresponsibly?.

Five years incarceration is the maximum penalty for such a charge. Mr. Bannister suggested four years for Seymour. However Mr. Attridge thought otherwise, saying that while generally such a term would be acceptable, this was a special case. The word ?hunch?, he added, was ?a misnomer?.

Four nights after the attack, Mr. Attridge said, ?by some strange coincidence? another brick was thrown at Seymour?s house, this time shattering a glass door.

The pair had a history of altercation, Mr. Attridge said, relating several events which occurred after the attack where Seymour had walked away, even after Mr. Sandiford threatened him with a knife.

Seymour established the annual seven-a-side memorial football tournament, has helped encourage young people and his peers, and has become a pillar of his community, he added.

Letters from others in Seymour?s community supported his statements: ?Our society is and always will be a better place with people like Danvers Seymour,? wrote one.

?He has developed a reputation as a doer of good deeds,? wrote another. ?My community cannot afford to lose Danvers, not even for a moment.?

Of the 20-odd spectators in the courtroom, the majority were there on Seymour?s behalf, Mr. Attridge added. He encouraged Mr. Justice Greaves to look at ?every possible alternative?, suggesting probation or a suspended sentence of five years.

Seymour told the court he accepted responsibility for what he had done. Reading from a letter which was later submitted for the record, he said: ?I have made a huge mistake, if not the biggest mistake of my life.?

Offering his ?deepest and humblest? apologies to the victim, the victim?s family, and his own family, Seymour, who paused several times during the reading to take deep breaths, added: ?I can?t apologise enough.?

Mr. Greaves credited Seymour for his efforts in the community ? however said he was ?unhappy? about the injuries inflicted on the victim. Seymour was ?apparently bent on vengeance based on nothing but a hunch,? he said. ?Such an attack ... stabs at the very soul of our society.?