New calls for glass ban after husband’s murder in club

The widow of a man who was killed with a broken bottle 12 years ago is once again calling for a ban on glass in nightclubs.

Jane Sherriff’s husband Philip Sherriff from Preston was stabbed in the neck in a London nightclub in 2012.

Their campaign for a ban had over 100,000 supporters, but it never led to a debate in Parliament.

She has now teamed up with former rugby player Matthew Syrons, who lost his sight in a glass attack, to once again campaign for a ban.

“Soul-destroying”

Mrs Sherriff said she was assured 12 years ago that sufficient precautions had been taken to ensure people’s safety.

Mr Syrons had a glass thrown at him by a stranger in a Leeds nightclub on December 27 and Ms Sherriff said his case showed those earlier assurances were false.

Mr. Syrons still cannot see and doctors do not know if his vision will return.

He said: “I don’t want anyone to be in this situation and it has been devastating for me and my family.

“I just think something has to change.”

The Home Office estimates that there are almost 90,000 violent glass incidents in the UK each year.

Mrs Sherriff’s husband was at a corporate event in London when he was stabbed in the neck with a broken glass bottle.

He died four days later, leaving behind Mrs. Sherriff and their children, then aged five and eight.

Ashley Charles, 26, from Leicester was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.

Ms Sherriff said her campaign had collected 110,000 signatures at the time but had not been debated in Parliament because it was “on paper and not online”.

“Not easy”

Night-Time Industries Association chairman Michael Kill said banning glass would not be easy.

He said: “We have developed many different technologies, from shattering glass to transferring glass into polycarbonate to selling cans.

“But right now the industry is facing such austerity and economic challenges… that’s something that needs to be taken into account, so we need to think about how we can implement that gradually.”

Mrs Sherriff, who has since remarried and has two more children, said the story was now about “other people who have suffered over the last 12 years and the changes that have not happened”.

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