Groom gets pummeled at a bar on night before his wedding
An unsuspecting British groom nearly lost an eye after being attacked during trivia night a bar the night before his wedding day – but still got to the church on time.
Scott Richards, 31, required over 14 stitches, is scarred for life, and almost called off the big day after doctors warned him he might need an eye removed.
His devastated bride, Adele Richards, 34, from Kent, England, saw her groom’s mangled face for the first time as she walked down the aisle, just hours after learning about the attack.
Tyler Plumridge, 28, who flung the glass into Scott’s face at Ashford’s Singleton Barn, appeared at Canterbury Crown Court last month. He did not serve jail time but was ordered to pay Scott Richards $1,265 in compensation within three months.
Plumridge, who works as a security guard, drunkenly lashed out after joining Scott’s group at the quiet Sunday night trivia after people caught him stealing a wallet and a phone.
Employees asked him to hand the stuff back and to leave the bar, but instead Plumridge stripped to his underwear before throwing a pint glass into Scott’s face.
The couple claims that Plumridge “almost totally ruined” their $22,780 wedding day, which they spent two years saving for.
“I still have nightmares about it now where I wake up in a cold sweat and can’t get back to sleep, the flashbacks are terrible. The whole incident was just so out of the blue, we’d only gone out for a few quiet drinks, but as soon as he threw the glass at my face there was blood everywhere. I had to be rushed to [to the ER] straight away where they spent hours picking glass from my eyeball,” Scott recalled.
“Doctors thought they might have to take my whole eye out and advised that I’d have to miss the wedding if so… it was awful. My wife, Adele, who I wasn’t meant to be speaking to, as it was technically our wedding day, was devastated when I called to tell her.
“The whole day was really hard as a result because I had a banging headache, I was in so much pain and looked a right state for the pictures. I was bruised, bandaged up and scarred- our two-year-old son was clearly worried when he saw me looking all mangled up and kept asking if I’d ‘fallen over. Thankfully the photographer was clever with the pics and we got some decent ones where I look OK but it really was a nightmare.”
The wedding, at Cooling Castle Barn, did eventually go ahead despite the incident, but the couple feels as though the incident severely tainted their enjoyment of their wedding day.
Both Adele and Scott Richards, a couple of five years, who have a son, Oscar, feel let down by what they feel is a very lenient sentence considering Scott’s injuries.
“I’m absolutely fuming about the sentence, this vile man almost ruined the most important day of our lives, never mind the health repercussions for Scott,” Adele Richards, who works in marketing, said.
“I’m 100% sure that Plumridge knew that Scott was the groom and must have had some idea of what he was doing when he smashed that glass into my husband’s face. Scott was forced to put a brave face on it for our whole wedding day but it was clear that he wasn’t himself. When I first saw him as I walked up the aisle, my stomach lurched, I thought I might be sick… I just couldn’t bare to see how bad the damage was,” she said.
“He looked dreadful, despite my makeup artist having a go at disguising some of the bruising etc. He was popping pain medication all day and had a banging headache throughout. Our son was scared to even look at his own dad and kept asking me ‘what happened to Daddy?’ On top of his dreadful injuries, Scott didn’t even get a wink of sleep that night so was shattered the whole wedding day,” she added.
Adele said her husband tried to spare her some stress by waiting to tell her what happened to him.
“He didn’t want to worry me about the attack and so didn’t ring me until 6 a.m. on the morning of the wedding, I was shaking like a leaf after his sister told me in tears that I needed to ring Scott. For one dreadful moment I thought I was getting stood up! We did discuss canceling the whole thing but in the end decided not to,” she said.
“I was late getting to the venue for my own wedding as after I’d spoken to Scott I just sat in my car and cried hysterically for 45 minutes, I couldn’t believe it had all gone so wrong. Scott was late too as he couldn’t even shower, his brother had to wash all the glass and blood out of his hair by hand.”
The newlyweds spent their first week as man and wife shuttling to and from their local hospital, William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and specialist eye hospital, The Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone.
“We were supposed to be in a happy newlywed bubble but instead I was spending my entire time rubbing different creams into Scott’s injuries and taking him to appointments. At one point they were even worried he might not recover his sight in the left eye at all,” Adele said. “He was still not completely well by the time we went on honeymoon to the Dominican Republic two weeks later. He had to lie down a lot due to the migraines. Some of the scar’s Scott has will never go now, the one on his nose is bright red like a burn, the skin is all crinkly.”
Adele said her husband’s condition is taking a toll on his mental health.
“But it’s not just the physical side of things, Scott definitely isn’t the same carefree person he was before the attack, he’s much more wary and anxious now and gets uncomfortable in busy, loud places. He used to be the most chilled guy beforehand and now he’s lost that, it’s so damaging what something like this can do. He’s in a permanent state of high alert, it’s so sad to see how much it’s affected him.”
