SMASHING the window of a listed building in Wisbech left Nicky Stroulger with such an horrific injury that he thought he had been stabbed.

An artery in his arm was severed during the alcohol and drug fuelled escapade – and he left a trail of blood as he left The Crescent and made his way to a friend’s home nearby.

“It was a serious cut, I had to have an operation,” Stroulger told Fenland magistrates. “I can’t remember what I did, my friend called an ambulance.”

Stroulger, 25, of Norwich Road, Wisbech, admitted causing �140 worth of damage to the window of a Georgian listed building on June 18.

When the owner discovered the broken glass, the blood left at the scene was DNA tested, and matched Stroulger, said prosecutor Andrea Fawcett.

“Stroulger told police he had been extremely drunk and had been smoking weed,” said Ms Fawcett. “He was unable to remember what happened.

“He turned up at a friend’s house in the early hours, just round the corner from the smashed window, and had a large wound on his arm.

“It was not until the next day that he was told that a trail of blood had been left.”

Representing himself in court, Stroulger said: “I had been drinking with my mates for most of the day, I didn’t realise I had smashed a window. I thought I had been stabbed, I lost my memory for two or three minutes.”

Stroulger said he had been addressing an alcohol problem, and was looking for work.

The court adjourned sentencing until August 4.