Christiaan Briggs, the peace activist whose attack on Les Incompetents frontman Billy Leeson left the singer critically ill, has been sentenced to eight months in prison, after appearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court. As previously reported, Leeson was left in a coma when he fell and hit his head after Briggs punched him following a dispute aboard a bus in north London back in June. The singer subsequently fell into a coma and required surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. He was in hospital for a period of six weeks, and had to learn to walk again.
Briggs, whose recent peace activities included being a human shield in Iraq in 2003, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm. The court heard that Leeson had been on the bus with his girlfriend and she had complained that Briggs was staring at her, so the singer asked Briggs to "look elsewhere", and that an exchange of words followed; when Leeson got off the bus in Camden, Briggs followed and punched him on the cheek, causing the fall that would lead to the singer's life threatening injuries.
Judge Peter Birts acknowledged that Briggs had shown "genuine remorse" but said that a prison sentence was inevitable.