A Tooting man who stabbed a 17-year-old boy after a racist clash in Manchester has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.

Donald Williams, 33, of Crowborough Road, stabbed Michael Green in the abdomen on Easter Day 2009 in Wood Lane, Partington.

The incident took place after a street brawl triggered by racist comments made to a woman in her house, Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court heard on Thursday.

Sentencing, Judge Stephen Lowcock said: “There is no doubt you were confronted by a large group of men armed with bits of wood.

“Your decision was, however, not to stay inside but to retrieve a knife and stab a young man who posed no threat to you.

“In my view, having heard all the evidence and considered it, I feel there is a serious risk to the public.”

The court was told in previous hearings that at 8pm on Easter Day a large group of youths shouted racist abuse outside the house of a woman and her daughter.

Neighbours intervened and the youths left, but they returned carrying planks of wood and began fighting with adults – including Williams.

After a friend was hit on the head, Williams took out a knife and stabbed Mr Green – even though he was not part of the fight.

He also picked up another teenager and threw him on to the windscreen of a car, cracking the glass.

Mr Green, from Partington, was “lucky to be alive” after the stabbing, according to the judge.

Before a sentence was passed, defence counsel Catherine Peerpoint said: “Donald Williams is particularly ashamed of the injuries he inflicted on this young man.

“He has expressed sorrow for that and he knows it’s something [the victim] will have to live with for the rest of his life, as will Mr Williams.

“He was wrong to take out a knife, but he never intended to use it – it was not premeditated.”

Williams, who has two previous convictions for stabbings, was convicted of assault and possession of a bladed article in a public place.

After the case Detective Constable Andy Kettle, from Stretford CID, said: “It’s only right Williams should be imprisoned for such a long stretch, because we have all seen that knife crime robs families of their loved ones.

“We must continue to show people if they resort to such violence, the consequence must be a long time behind bars.”