Two men involved in a "Neanderthal-style" skirmish, in which a victim was stabbed 13 times, have been sent to youth custody.

Aaron Ham and Oliver Frape were in a group of young men which attacked another in Bishopsworth, Bristol Crown Court heard on Friday.

During the fracas, a penknife was produced and victim Scott Wood received 13 shallow stab wounds, causing a collapsed lung.

Ham, aged 19, of Ilchester Crescent, Bedminster Down, pleaded guilty to wounding with intent in September last year.

Frape, 20, of Brooklyn Road, Bedminster Down, pleaded guilty to affray.

Judge David Ticehurst sentenced Ham to three-and-a-half years' youth detention and Frape to 14 months.

He told the pair: "You have pleaded guilty to serious offences.

"Those who are prepared to use knives on the streets should understand there is only one sentence.

"This was an unprovoked attack on other young men and that they did not suffer more serious injury is more by luck than judgement.

"The decent citizens of Bristol are sick and tired of gangs of youths behaving in this way and the courts need to take a serious view of it."

Stephen Dent said three men who were out in Bishopsworth had seen a gang making a noise, but they carried on with their evening.

About an hour-and-a-half later, the three were walking towards the Cross Hands pub when they saw a group of about 10-20 youths shouting down at them.

Mr Dent said: "They ignored the shouts and that clearly annoyed the gang on the grass verge, and they came down, including these two defendants.

"As the group walked down, they were shouting and picking up branches.

"Oliver Frape was wearing a cast on his broken arm and he took the lead."

Mr Dent said that, in a fracas that ensued, Mr Wood was stabbed some 13 times to his left side, back and right arm.

A few hours later, Ham was located on Bishopsworth Road and, when police searched him and the area around him, they discovered a knife behind a drain pipe bearing his DNA on the handle and Mr Wood's blood on the blade.

Ham told police the three victims of the attack had been winding up his group and, when Frape confronted them, the men attacked him (Frape).

He added that he had been passed a Swiss Army knife and used it to stab Mr Wood's tricep.

Frape told police his group had gone down to the men after something had been said to them and a man had assaulted him.

Neither man had previous relevant convictions, the court was told.

Ian Dixey, defending Ham, told the court his client had got involved in the incident when he went to the support of someone else.

He said: "He should never have got involved and he should never have been involved with the use of a knife.

"This was a penknife, it has a relatively small blade and is an ordinary Swiss Army knife.

"Mr Ham has no convictions for violence on his record at all and is a perfectly reasonable young man, who has always been in work."

Jonathan Stanniland, defending, said his client, too, was of good character and the whole episode had had a chastening effect on him.

He told the court: "There's something primeval about the way the two groups moved.

"It sounds like Neanderthal groups merging on each other.

"At one point, one of the three men removed his shirt and he sounds more like a Viking Beserker than a victim.

"Mr Frape was lifted from his feet after squaring up to somebody who was much too big to take on."