A teenage thug who stabbed a reveller in the back with a screwdriver after a row about entry to a late-night bar was locked up for two years this week.

Steven Moriarty, then just 17, lay in wait for James Murdoch, 27, after he intervened in a dispute with bouncers outside The Quays pub in Holloway Road, Upper Holloway.

Door staff refused to let Moriarty’s friend Arnold Andrews, 20, back in after he went outside for a chat. Mr Murdoch became involved after stepping outside for a cigarette and helped staff calm down the situation.

Moriarty, of Countess Road, Kentish Town, and Andrews of Warrender Road, Tufnell Park, then waited in the street for an hour before ambushing Mr Murdoch as he headed to a nearby kebab shop on his way home along Holloway Road on April 21.

The Old Bailey heard on Tuesday that Andrews confronted him and Moriarty stabbed him once in the back with a screwdriver.

Prosecutor Charles Crinion said: “He [Mr Murdoch] turned around to see him holding what looked like a pen but was in fact a screwdriver. He then realised he was bleeding.”

The victim phoned police from a minicab office and later pointed out his attackers to officers as they drove him home.

Police said Mr Murdoch was lucky not to be more seriously injured.

Moriarty was seen to drop two screwdrivers onto the pavement moments before he was arrested.

He had received a police warning for carrying a screwdriver just a month before the attack in the early hours.

Moriarty, now 18, admitted unlawful wounding and was handed a two-year spell in a young offenders’ institute by Judge Paul Worsley.

Andrews pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of affray on the day his trial was due to begin and was locked up for 14 months.