Jail for City charity attack

A charity sports match left one player with a broken neck after an opponent struck him with a wooden stick.

His attacker, City engineer David Lamb, is now serving a two-year prison sentence for grievous bodily harm.

Today Mr Ellerey, 34, told how a supposedly good-natured game descended into violence at Broadgate Estate ice rink in Liverpool Street.

Broomball is played by two teams and the aim is to score by hitting a small ball into the opponents' goal using a metrelong stick with a triangle of hard rubber at one end.

Mr Ellerey, who hadn't played the game before, was off work for 10 weeks after the attack recovering from two broken vertebrae. He was a keen ice hockey player but doctors have said he will never again take part in the sport, or even skate.

He said of the fateful match: "As it was for charity everyone was in good spirits and looking forward to playing. When the game started there were a few scuffles but nothing too much to worry about.

"But there was then another bit of pushing and shoving and as I ran back down the rink all of a sudden I felt this incredible pain at the back of my neck.

"I didn't see who had hit me but I immediately fell to the floor and lost all control of my legs. I tried to get up but my body wasn't doing what I wanted it to, there was no feeling-below my waist. I was terrifiedas I thought that I wouldn't be able to walk again."

Mr Ellerey, who now lives in Belfast and is equipment manager for the Belfast Giants hockey team, said: "This whole affair changed my life forever.

"I had played ice hockey since I was a teenager, so to be told that I could no longer play the sport I love left me devastated.

"Before all of this I liked to keep fit but I can no longer go to the gym or lift weights.

"I also liked to play golf but I get scared and worried what will happen if I fall over or strain myself.

"I get pins and needles in my legs and it can take me hours to get to sleep."

At Southwark Crown Court this week Lamb, 34, of Maidstone, Kent, was sentenced for the November 2002 attack and ordered to pay ?3,000 in compensation. During the trial, jurors watched video footage of him raising his broomball stick - a "substantial piece of wood" - and striking Mr Ellerey.

Lamb, who was goalkeeper for the Ibex team, had left his position and moved to the middle of the rink when he struck Mr Ellerey, who was playing for the London Knights.

Lamb, described as a " hardworking family man" with a wife and three children, claimed he had acted to protect a team-mate. But Judge Neil Stewart told him: "This should have been a lighthearted, pleasant evening.

"You chose to leave your goal, advance down the rink, raise your stick over your head and bring it down on the back of Mr Ellerey's neck.

"It must be made clear that serious violence of this kind, whether it is in the sports arena or any other place, will be met with substantial punishment."