A fireworks display organiser has been jailed for 88 days after failing to pay compensation to a former employee who was blinded during a show.

Jason Edgecombe, of Northcote Road in Mangotsfield, was ordered to pay £5,000 to Chris Hignell after a professional grade mortar went off in the employee's face at a firework display in 2008, leaving him with horrific injuries.

Edgecombe, 30, pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety regulations and fraudulently using false insurance certificates for his firm JWP Fireworks in September and was given a 36-week prison sentence suspended for two years.

He was also banned from organising or working at firework displays.

But Edgecombe failed to pay a £200 installment of the compensation by the end of October, triggering a demand for payment of the full amount.

Edgecombe was then arrested on December 28 in Mangotsfield after a warrant was issued days before Christmas.

This followed his failure to appear at Bristol Crown Court on December 21 in relation to another alleged breach of his suspended sentence.

On Wednesday he was sentenced at Bristol Magistrates' Court to 88 days in jail for failing to pay compensation.

Mr Hignell's face was horribly disfigured from the accident and he has had 19 surgical procedures and 75 hospital visits for remarkable reconstructive surgery by experts Tim Burge, Stuart Cook and Peter Revington at Frenchay Hospital and Helen Herbert at the Bristol Eye Hospital.

But because he was not technically the victim of a criminal assault, he could be left without adequate compensation.

The 53-year-old has already been rejected twice by the criminal compensation board and has a third and final appeal hearing on January 19.

The keen surfer who used to run a surf shop in Keynsham has had to give up his hobby due to risk of infection in his injured eye and, more pertinently, is still unable to work. He has had to sell his beloved Harley Davidson motorcycle due to his lack of income and relies heavily on his wife Wendy.

"I want to go back to work but the GP still says I'm in no fit state to," Mr Hignell told the Evening Post.

"It takes up to five years for your brain to figure things out (after the trauma of being blinded in one eye).

"I still can't put down a hot cup of coffee without using my hands to judge distance.

"I can drive, but it is the little things like peeling potatoes, putting a glass under a tap, or steps.

"Driving is less of a problem because big distances are fine with a degree of caution, but I can't park in a tight space."

Motorists with one eye have to notify the DVLA of their condition but are legally allowed to drive if they still have good sight in their other eye.

Mr Hignell is regaining his sense of distance, and confidence after his initial heavy disfigurement and is eternally grateful to his wife and the NHS doctors who have treated him.

"Wendy has had to give up a lot to look after me," he said. "And can you imagine what my bill to the NHS is after 80 visits to hospital?

"We've got some of the best surgeons in the world here in Bristol and I can't thank them enough."