A TEENAGER who stabbed a man with a shard of glass following a drunken row outside a nightclub has been jailed.

Carl Nixon picked up the sharp implement following a town centre scuffle in the early hours of the morning.

And the 19-year-old then plunged the weapon into his victim’s shoulder, leaving him needing surgery to the wound.

A judge at Swindon Crown Court heard how the incident took place close to Sainsbury’s in the Brunel Centre at about 2am on Friday, February 11.

Nixon’s girlfriend had been involved in a disagreement with another woman, who had been out for the night with victim Christopher Harris and another man.

As the argument developed the court heard that the defendant punched Mr Harris in the face.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, said the victim asked him what he did that for.

She said Mr Harris started to walk away but turned round when he heard someone shouting ‘oi’.

He saw that Nixon was bent down, but as he stood back up he lunged at the victim in one swift motion and landed a blow to his right shoulder.

Mr Harris felt a sudden sharp pain where he had been hit and later realised he had been stabbed.

Miss Hingston said he was taken to hospital where he needed to undergo surgery to nerve damage and had stitches put in the cut.

Nixon, of Bembridge Close, Park North, pleaded guilty to one charge of grievous bodily harm.

Mike Pulsford, defending, said his client was very drunk at the time of the incident and picked up the weapon for his own protection.

Nixon punched the other man, not realising he still had the weapon in his hand, before running off after the bouncers separated them.

Jailing him for nine months, Judge Euan Ambrose said: “To use a weapon in a public place in the early hours of the morning, it is frightening for people seeing that; indeed it’s terrifying.

“There has to be a clear message sent out that this totally unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated.”