A DAWLISH man has been cleared of a bottle attack after the victim told a court that he did not know who had hit him.

Corie-Lee Cleave was found not guilty on the orders of a judge at Exeter Crown Court after he ruled that no jury could be sure who had inflicted the blow that injured the victim.

The violence flared near Dawlish Railway Station at the end of the first Friday night in which pubs were open after the first lockdown in 2020 and many of those involved had been drinking heavily.

Scaffolder Ryan Coombstock was left with a cut on his head after being hit by a bottle in the second of two drunken brawls on the same night. 

He told the jury he had drunk between 10 and 15 pints and possibly some shots during a pub crawl with his boss, who he said was more inebriated than him.

Mr Coombstock had recently broken up after a two year relationship with Cleave’s mother Louise, who was out drinking with another ex-partner called Andy England.

The violence started in the early hours of the Saturday morning because Mr England thought Mr Coombstock or his boss had kicked off his wing mirror.

It led to a fight in which Mr England punched Mr Coombstock and he retaliated with a single blow which fractured Mr England’s jaw.

Cleave’s mother aimed a couple of punched at Mr Coombstock and there was a brief pause in the violence before a second brawl which involved Cleave and a friend of his.

Mr Coombstock was punched and hit with a bottle during this fight but told the jury he could not identify who caused the injury to his head. 

There was a short mobile phone clip of the fight but he was not shown it either when he gave his statement to the police or while giving evidence in court and was therefore unable to identify himself or his attacker.

Miss Victoria Bastock, prosecuting, asked Judge David Evans to allow her to reopen the prosecution case to try to rectify this omission, but the judge refused and told the jury to return a not guilty verdict.

Judge Evans said: ‘Undoubtedly there was a lot of drunken aggression that evening. The prosecution have to prove that the defendant and no-one else was responsible for the injury on the top of Mr Coombstock’s head.

‘You have heard evidence from him that he is unable to identify who caused the injury. He was unable to say, when he put his arms up, what happened next and I have decided there is insufficient evidence to prove this offence.’

Cleave, aged 22, of Osprey Road, Dawlish Warren, denied assault causing actual bodily harm and was found not guilty. He admitted personal possession of 0.1 gram of cocaine found on him when arrested and was fined £200.

Miss Bastock told the jury the assault happened at the end of a night in which Mr Coombstock had been on a pub crawl in Dawlish in which he had encountered Louise Cleave and Mr England more than once.

They had a fight near the railway station and there was then a second brawl close to the alleyway which runs past the Railway Inn. She played CCTV footage showing Cleave going past the pub just before the second fight.

She also played a short mobile phone clip of the final brawl, which showed a confused scene with several people involved.

Mr William Parkhill, defending, said that even on Mr Coombstock’s evidence, he had already been punched by Mr England and Louise Cleave and was aware of another man stood behind him when he thought he was bottled.

He said the prosecution had failed to identify who was who in the mobile phone footage and it was impossible for the jury to be sure who struck the blow which caused the injury.