Drugs kingpin stabbed man in 'frenzied and brutal' bloody knife attack on Leeds street

Darren Winstanley was on bail for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs when a violent confrontation was arranged outside a pub which resulted in the victim being stabbed 12 times.

Winstanley, a “career criminal” was jailed for 20 years at Leeds Crown Court this morning after he pleaded guilty to the drugs charge, and was found guilty after a trial of Section 18 wounding.

The court was told that the 52-year-old had taken an associate as “muscle” to the meet on the afternoon June 14, 2021 outside a busy pub.

The victim brought a large knife with him, but it failed to deter Winstanley and his friend, so the victim began running away, pursued by the pair.

They chased him for several hundred yards before the victim lost his footing in an alleyway off Hebden Green and dropped his knife. Winstanley picked it up and began the bloody assault, stabbing the man in 12 times in the face, neck and upper body. Five wounds were inflicted to his neck, including a a seven-cm-deep cut.

The second man had to pull Winstanley away and they ran off leaving him in his pools of his own blood. The incident was partially captured on CCTV but the knife was never recovered.

Judge Christopher Batty said: “It was a frenzied and brutal attack you inflicted. You only stopped because the man you were with thought he might be killed. They were life-threatening injuries to his neck. Had he not been treated, he would have died.”

Winstanley, formerly of Eastdean Grove, Seacroft, has a lengthy criminal record and was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in 2010 for firearm offences.

The court heard that he ran a heroin ring with others during 2018, and it was thought that he and his gang sold more than 18kg of the deadly drug.

He denied the offence but changed his plead to guilty part way through his trial.

Judge Batty jailed him for 12 years for the Section 18 wounding, and eight years consecutively for the drugs matter.