A MAN stabbed a shop customer in the back in an unprovoked attack during broad daylight, just one day after attacking another.

Courtney Wheeler attacked two men in two days in a ‘spate of shocking violence’ outside a bargain convenience store in Winton, Bournemouth.

The 27-year-old was sentenced at Bournemouth Crown Court for wounding with intent, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, possessing a bladed article and possession of an offensive weapon in a private place.

Prosecutor Matthew Parris said on May 22, 2023, Wheeler approached the victim outside the shop at around 5.30pm.

The interaction began friendly before Wheeler confronted the man and accused him of selling class A drugs to his mother.

“Mr Wheeler asked, ‘are you smoking food with my mother?’ and then hit the victim,” said Mr Parris.

CCTV footage shows the defendant hitting the man across the face and angrily pointing his finger towards him.

The victim was later admitted to A&E for a deep laceration to his ear as a result of the attack.

He said in a victim personal statement that he was left in a lot of pain and forced to take time from work.

“I find it difficult to walk down the street, not knowing what will happen to me,” he said.

“I only feel safe in my car.”

He added: “I do not know why he did this.”

The next day Wheeler returned to the same shop and targeted a second victim.

Video footage shows the victim enter the store first before the defendant cycles past, briefly stopping to lunge into the shop.

Wheeler lurched towards the defendant with a knife, while the victim attempted to flee further into the store.

The victim was left with a stab wound to his back, causing an injury to his kidney and putting him in the intensive care unit at Poole Hospital.

Wheeler was later arrested on May 24 at his home address on Windham Road, Bournemouth.

Clothing and a mountain bike were seized as well as a knuckle duster found within his home.

The defendant has 14 previous convictions for 24 offences, including two charges of assaulting an emergency worker in 2022.

Mitigating, Caroline Stewart, said Wheeler has a history of trauma surrounding his relationship with his mother.

She added that the defendant has beaten his own addiction of substance abuse “through hard work” but that his mother has not.

He believed that people concerned with selling drugs had been at his mother’s address which made him concerned for her welfare and “overwhelmingly angry.”

Judge Susan Evans said the defendant made a “very quick and vicious deliberate stab to the back.”

She acknowledged his “genuine remorse” and ambition to work in construction but noted his high risk of harm to the general public.

Judge Evans sentenced Wheeler to four years in prison.