Colin Dobbin given suspended jail sentence for glassing friend at Burns Club in Kambah

The "nuisance" who struck him, Colin George Dobbin, later choked back tears while telling a magistrate of the shame he felt.

The 53-year-old Kambah man walked out of the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday afternoon with a suspended jail sentence for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Agreed facts show Dobbin and the victim, a long-term friend of his, played pool together at the Burns Club in Kambah on December 23 last year.

They were in a courtyard there early the next morning when Dobbin called out to a woman in what the victim thought was an inappropriate way.

The victim, already aggrieved at the way Dobbin had spoken to somebody else earlier on, told the 53-year-old to "pull your head in and calm down".

This led to a shouting match, with CCTV footage showing the victim pushing Dobbin a number of times.

Dobbin, who was holding a beer in one hand and his phone in the other, responded by swinging his glass into the victim's face, causing it to shatter and cut the man's left cheek.

Paramedics came and took the victim to hospital, where he stayed until he was discharged on Christmas Day.

The man reported the incident to police a few days later, and officers soon obtained the relevant surveillance video.

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Dobbin pleaded guilty on the second mention of his case once the matter reached court.

When the 53-year-old fronted a sentence hearing on Thursday, a prosecutor read out a statement from the victim.

The 45-year-old victim detailed how he had feared losing an eye in the attack, which had changed him as a person and left him suffering nightmares.

He said he had been left with what was expected to be a permanent scar.

"It's always on my mind that a so-called friend did that to me," the victim wrote.

"I will never forgive him."

Dobbin's lawyer, Henry Marjason, told the court the situation could have very easily have ended with the victim sitting where his client was.

He claimed Dobbin had perceived a threat and reacted to it in a "fight or flight" way, with the "unfortunate" result being that a man was hurt and a friendship ruined.

Mr Marjason said his client, a disability support pensioner, was ordinarily a kind and decent person who had "put his hand up" to the offending and expressed a desire to never drink alcohol again.

The prosecutor in the matter told Magistrate Beth Campbell she believed the threshold for a jail sentence had been crossed.

She said this was a serious assault that had resulted in an injury to a vulnerable part of the victim's body, adding that Dobbin's intoxication at the time was not a mitigating circumstance.

After watching the CCTV footage, Ms Campbell said it seemed the victim had, "for a while at least", been the aggressor in the altercation.

The magistrate quoted former prime minister Tony Abbott as she described the victim as seemingly having tried to "shirtfront" Dobbin.

Ms Campbell told Dobbin she suspected that had happened because the 53-year-old had been "a nuisance that night".

However, she said it appeared he had just been trying to get the victim to move away from him when he lashed out, reckless about the fact he was holding a glass.

"Certainly the conduct is not something you should be proud of," she said, noting that she believed Dobbin was genuinely remorseful.

Ms Campbell ultimately imposed a wholly suspended jail term of five months, accompanied by a 12-month good behaviour order.

After the sentence had been pronounced, an emotional Dobbin choked back tears as he told the magistrate: "I'm so ashamed."

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