A BOY of 16 who stabbed his opponent with a bread knife during a pre-arranged fight has been sentenced to four and a half years detention.

The schoolboys confronted one another with a golf club and a bat after meeting in Rillington Mead, Eccleshill, Bradford, on July 17.

The victim, also 16, collapsed bleeding heavily after the defendant was handed the knife and stuck it in his left flank, Bradford Crown Court heard on Friday.

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The injured youth was in intensive care for a week and needed several blood transfusions, prosecutor Andrew Dallas said.

He had sustained permanent damage to his left kidney and now suffered from anxiety and sleeplessness.

The defendant, who cannot be named because of his age, was first charged with attempted murder but his guilty plea to wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm was accepted by the crown.

He also admitted possession of a golf club and a knife as offensive weapons.

He had previous convictions for shop theft, possession of cocaine and causing actual bodily harm, the court was told.

The boy was committed for sentence from the youth court for theft from a motor vehicle, attempted house burglary and stealing a till from a shop.

He asked the court to take into consideration offences of shop theft, interfering with a vehicle, taking a vehicle without consent, criminal damage to a wheelchair and theft from a vehicle.

Mr Dallas said the boy heard that his victim was accusing him of stealing his bicycle.

They met up for a fight, watched by a group of other youths.

The knife was found afterwards on a building site and the boy was arrested hiding behind a bed at a house in Bradford.

He made no comment when he was interviewed by the police.

The boy’s solicitor advocate, Simon Hustler, said he did not take the knife with him, it was handed to him during the fight.

The boy’s father was in court to support him and the teenager had written a letter to the judge expressing sincere remorse.

The defendant had ADHD and he had suffered from multiple difficulties when growing up.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, said the boy had too many criminal convictions for one so young.

“You were truly out of control,” he said.

The boy had stabbed the other youth “without hesitation.”

“This was a very nasty reaction when you were handed a lethal knife,” the judge said.

But the boy, who was remanded in secure accommodation while awaiting sentence, now had a degree of insight and maturity into what he had done.