A Wandsworth banker has been jailed for more than two years after pleading guilty to smashing a bottle over a client’s head at a charity ball.

Colin Sharpe, 31, of Treport Street, cried in the dock as he was sentenced yesterday to 26 months in prison for glassing wealthy hedge fund manager Joe Delvaux with a beer bottle in an apparently unprovoked attack in the early hours of July 11 last year.

Southwark Crown Court heard Sharpe made a drunken pass at Mr Delvaux’s wife on the dance floor at the party at exclusive West End celebrity nightspot, Paper.

When the 28-year-old stepped in, his wife tried to drag him away but as he was leaving Sharpe swung the Budweiser bottle he was holding in a backhand tennis swing motion and smashed it over Mr Delvaux’s head leaving a shard of glass imbedded in his skull.

The blow - which has left a permanent boomerang shaped scar - narrowly missed Mr Delvaux’s eye and an artery and left him needing six stitches.

In a victim statement read out to the court, Mr Delvaux described how it took one month for the swelling and redness of his injuries to go down and he had been left with a one-and-a-half inch scar which he would have for the rest of his life.

He also said the attack had made him wary of going out to places where people were drinking alcohol and he had missed days at work because of his appearance.

Passing sentence, Recorder Ellison QC gave Sharpe - who was sacked from his job because of the incident - full credit for his guilty plea.

But he said despite the 16 good character references Sharpe's defence counsel presented, he was bound to pass a custodial sentence for the GBH offence.

He said: “It was a terrible, drink-fuelled attack of serious violence.

"An unprovoked attack at this level cannot be punished with anything other than an immediate sentence of imprisonment.

"I give you full credit for your guilty plea and previous good character but there is no justification for what you did.”