Attacker grabbed knife from store before stabbing men in taxi queue

A knife attacker who stabbed two men in a taxi queue has been jailed for four years.

Jordan Moore, 20, grabbed a knife from a shop before chasing Kieran Lynch and Dylan Cooper at Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street and attacking them.

A judge told Moore at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You have pled guilty to two aggravated and serious assaults in which you used a knife on two separate people.”

Lord Burns said: “You appear to be prone to impulsive and violent outbursts due to an apparent inability to control your emotions.”

However, the judge added that there were indications that Moore may be capable of addressing his problems.

He said he hoped that the offender would be able to behave in a mature and responsible way in future.

Lord Burns also ordered that Moore should be under supervision for a further five years.

He told Moore: “During the whole of that time you will be monitored and supervised by social services so that the risk you pose to the public is minimised.”

Lord Burns said: “You should note that if you commit any offence during that extension period you will be liable to be returned to prison for all of it.”

He told Moore that he would have faced five years’ detention in a young offenders’ institution, but for his guilty pleas.

Moore had originally faced two charges of attempted murder for the attacks on Mr Lynch and Mr Cooper on July 30 last year.

But the Crown accepted his pleas of guilty to reduced charges of assaulting them to their severe and permanent disfigurement as well as to the danger of life in Mr Lynch’s case.

Mr Lynch was repeatedly knifed as he was pinned against a metal fence and Mr Cooper was struck with the blade on the buttock and groin. Mr Lynch suffered a serious stomach injury and underwent surgery.

The court heard that the victims had been out at the Driftwood pub and came across Moore and a female friend in a taxi queue and made an attempt to be friendly.

But Moore went into a nearby store and got a knife before running out shouting: “Come on then.”

Defence counsel Tony Graham QC said that Moore had not gone out armed with a weapon.

He said: “There was a reaction, a gross overreaction, to a confrontation that took place.”

He said: “Mr Moore has expressed a genuine remorse in relation to his actions, a recognition of his offending and a recognition of a need to change.”

Moore, formerly of Hackney, in London, was arrested while at a hospital in West Lothian following the attacks on the two men.