Lester Ramsey: Sheffield thug left man needing 200 stitches after slashing him across face in bar

The innocent man was disfigured for life after he was targeted by career criminal Lester Ramsey, formerly of Skelton Close, Woodhouse, in a senseless attack in a Sheffield bar.

Sheffield Crown Court heard how the 26-year-old spitefully cut his victim’s face while he was being thrown out of The Parrot Club, in Neepsend, in December 2023.

Ramsey was deemed as ‘dangerous’ and was handed another 10 years in prison to run alongside the four years he was already serving for conspiracy to rob.

It means he was essentially may now not be releases until 2035.

Brutal attack on man he didn’t even know

The court heard how the victim was with his partner and three other couples on a Christmas night out on December 9, 2023, when they stopped at The Parrot Club at around 9pm.

However, also at the bar were Ramsey and a group of other men, who had been asked to leave by the door staff.

During this time, Ramsey “pushed or bumped into” one of the victim’s friends before “getting in his face”, prompting the victim to step in and ask what he was doing.

Prosecutor Louise Reevell told the court: “CCTV showed how [Ramsey] then raised his arm and ‘cut’ downwards at the victim’s face.”

It was the exact moment 26-year-old Ramsey had slashed his victim with a lock knife, causing a laceration down the whole of his face, before fleeing the scene.

The victim was rushed to hospital and needed specialist facial surgery, with a total of over 200 stitches.

Over 200 stitches

In an impact statement read out in court by Ms Reevell, the man told how he has been left with a scar running the entire length of his face and today lives with PTSD.

He wrote: “My life changed when I was the victim to a brutal, unprovoked attack.

“No one deserves to go on a night out with friends and come away with life-changing injuries like I have.

“Every time I look in the mirror it brings it all back - flashbacks of my attacker slicing my face open.

“I see people who do not know me looking at me, and I feel I look like a criminal. My work requires going to people’s homes for quotes, and I can see clients looking at me, unsure if they want this person in their home. I am sure I have lost work opportunities because of my scar.

“I am not the same person I once was. I’m on edge, nervous and quieter. I do not know if I will ever return to the person I was.”

The victim thanked his partner and close friends for the “incredible support” they had shown him.

Meanwhile, Ramsey - a career criminal whose record includes violent robbery, knife crime, and strings of assaults - was recognised from the CCTV footage by police officers and arrested.

He made no comment in police interviews, but was found guilty by a jury of wounding.

When he was sentenced yesterday, Ramsey was already serving a sentence for being accomplice to a robbery which resulted in the fatal shooting of an innocent Sheffield dad-of-two.

It was just three days after slashing the man’s face at The Parrot Club, that Ramsey joined in on a plan to raid a cannabis farm, which resulted in a murder.

The court heard, however, that there was “some significant mitigation” in this latest knife slashing case - as it is reportedly a prison psychologist’s opinion that Ramsey has “begun to develop empathy for his victims” for perhaps the first time in his life.

His Honour Judge Alex Menary deemed Ramsey ‘dangerous,’ handing him an extended prison sentence of 10 years, to run alongside his current sentence of four years.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said Ramsey’s 10-year sentence would be in addition to the four years he is currently serving, but this is not the case. The 10-year sentence will be service ‘concurrently,’ not ‘consecutively.’ The story has been update to reflect this.