He asked a police officer to leave his girlfriend alone... what happened next will haunt him forever

A former British Transport Police officer has been jailed for a vicious 'glassing' which left his terrified victim scarred for life. PC Niki Minev, 31, was off duty when he attacked landscape gardener Connor Simpson during a night out in Manchester city centre bar, smashing a glass into his victim's head and then 'scraping it' down his face.

After his attacker was jailed, Mr Simpson described how he was scared to go out at night and had been left permanently disfigured in the attack.

The 28-year-old told the Manchester Evening News: "I just can't understand how someone like that can be a police officer in the first place. They should be trained to walk away from incidents and clearly he did not want to walk away that night. He's obviously not a nice person, to hit them with a glass and then hit them again."

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He went on: "I don't go out socialising anymore. I really don't go anywhere that's crowded. This has definitely had an effect on my mental health. I still have pain in my face and three scars down the left side of my face. He basically grabbed my girlfriend and when I told him not to do it again they were in my face... I've stepped back and he's smacked me with a glass and then rubbed the glass and twisted it in my head."

Mr Simpson required 15 stitches in a gaping head wound and had an MRI scan which revealed irreparable nerve damage.

At his sentencing hearing, a judge told Minev, who worked for British Transport Police (BTP) at the time, that he had not needed to hit the victim at all during the incident. “What you did was in temper. It was not a case of excessive self-defence,” Judge Anil Murray told Liverpool Crown Court.

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