A FATHER-OF-FOUR has been jailed for 12 years for smashing a glass into a man's face causing him to lose an eye.

Mark Burns mounted a sustained attack on Rhys Iwanczuk outside the Oddfellows public house, in High Street, Idle, Bradford, on August 3 last year, Bradford Crown Court heard.

A jury yesterday convicted Burns,36, a warehouse operative, of Swain House Road, Swain House, Bradford, of causing Mr Iwanczuk grievous bodily harm with intent.

Recorder Dean Kershaw told Burns that witness after witness had given consistent evidence that it was Burns who smashed a glass into Mr Iwanczuk's face.

Labelling it a "sustained and cowardly attack", Recorder Kershaw said Mr Iwanczuk had struggled to cope with the loss of his left eye.

He had suffered extreme distress and missed the birth of his first child because he was undergoing further surgery.

"One can only imagine what losing an eye can mean," Recorder Kershaw said.

He accepted that Burns acted "in the heat of the moment" and that the offence was a one-off that represented a huge escalation in his catalogue of 14 previous offences.

During the trial, prosecutor Jo Shepherd said Mr Iwanczuk, his pregnant girlfriend, Ella Wilkins, and a group of friends were in the busy pub shortly after midnight.

Mr Iwanczuk got into an argument with a woman he had been at school with and Burns intervened.

The landlord asked them to leave and, outside the pub, Burns attacked Mr Iwanczuk from behind, smashing a glass in his face.

He then threw punches at him as he stumbled away, holding his shirt up to his injured eye.

Miss Shepherd said lacerations to the eyeball were stitched at Bradford Royal Infirmary but the injury did not heal.

In November last year, the eye had to be removed and replaced with an artificial one.

Burns was identified on Facebook and arrested and interviewed three days after the attack.

He answered no comment to all questions the police put to him.

After the jury's guilty verdict, Burns' barrister, Nadim Bashir, conceded it was an horrific injury caused in a sustained attack.

"A red mist must have descended upon him in the public house," Mr Bashir said in mitigation.

He told the court Burns was a hard working man who lived with his mother.

Although he had previous convictions for violence, none were anywhere near as serious as this.