A dad got high on cocaine as he watched the Merseyside Derby then went round to a stranger’s flat and beat him with a wooden bat.
Liam Traynor also drank heavily before attacking Mark Cummins in his home in Huyton.
Liverpool Crown Court heard the 36-year-old later said he could not remember anything about what led to the savage attack on Mr Cummins in the early hours of Wednesday, December 5, 2019.
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Traynor watched the Premier League match between Liverpool and Everton on TV on December 4 before going with two other men to the Knowsley Heights estate, where his father lives.
Joanne Maxwell, prosecuting, said CCTV showed the three men walking up to the floor where Mr Cummins’ flat is located.
One of the men then waited away from the flat while Traynor and another man began banging on his front door and smashing the window of his bathroom, which faces on to the corridor.
When Mr Cummins, who had been woken up by the noise, opened his door slightly he was attacked.
Miss Maxwell said: “Mr Cummins said a male came in and started to strike him to his arm and to his head.”
The attack, which the court heard also involved the second man, continued for almost a few minutes before the men left.
Mr Cummins was then taken to hospital by emergency services, where he had to receive stitches to two wounds to his head and treatment for other injuries to his head and arm.
Traynor fled to his father’s flat and was arrested trying to leave the building a few hours later.
In a statement read out in court, Mr Cummins said he had lived in Knowsley Heights for three decades with no issues but said that during the attack he “had never felt so vulnerable in my life”.
He said: “That night I lost my sense of confidence and the comfort of being in my own home and I also lost my dignity.”
He said he was unable to return to his job as a hospital porter after the attack and ultimately lost his contract there.
Traynor denied the allegations against him when interviewed by police and later in the magistrates courts.
However, he pleaded guilty to wounding with intent in his first appearance at Liverpool Crown Court.
He refused to name the two men who were with him.
One was charged but the case against him did not proceed to conviction due to a lack of evidence. The third man was never identified.
Philip Astbury, defending, said Traynor was extremely sorry for his actions and told probation officers he did not have any memory of what happened that night.
Mr Astbury said that in the long gap between the attack and today’s sentencing hearing Traynor had become a highly valued employee in a new job and continued to have caring responsibilities for his and his partners’ children.
However, he said he expected a lengthy jail term.
Mr Astbury said: “He will use his time in custody positively.
“A number of family members are with him in court. They stand by him and that support will of course be crucial as he continues his rehabilitation.”
Mr Asbury said Traynor, who carried out the attack shortly after completing another jail term for assisting an offender, was deeply remorseful.
He said: “He bitterly regrets what went on in the early hours of that morning .
“He wishes he could turn the clock back. He cannot - and he accepts that.”
Judge David Potter, sentencing, said Traynor’s lack of memory and insight into how and why the attack happened was troubling.
He said: “After this atrocious beating you returned to your father’s flat in the same complex.
“Since the attack, in interviews with police and the probation service, you claim to have no memory of how it happened, what happened and why you did what you did.”
Judge Potter said he believed the cocaine and alcohol that Traynor “binged on” prior to the attack had contributed to this but said he accepted that he was remorseful.
He said: “You claim to be full of remorse for what happened that night and I have no doubt you are.”
Traynor, of Nyland Road, Huyton, was sentenced to six years in prison.
