A BUSINESSMAN who used his wife as ''bait'' to lure former

international footballer Mickey Thomas into a sex session during which

he was beaten and stabbed was yesterday jailed for three years.

But Geoffrey Dean's 30-year-old wife, Erica, who had sex with the

Wrexham player in a car in a field, escaped prison because she has two

young children, is expecting another, and could have been pressurised by

her husband into the plot.

Ordering Mrs Dean to do 180 hours community service Judge Elgan

Edwards told her at Chester Crown Court: ''Your conduct was shameful.

You were the bait and you lured Mr Thomas into what can only be

described as a most vulnerable position.

''You allowed him to have sexual relations with you while knowing he

was about to be attacked and attacked seriously.''

Dean, 33, and his wife, both of Rhyl, Clwyd, and businessman Mark

Gorevan, 27, of Rhyl, had all pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to

unlawfully wounding the 39-year-old footballer, in August last year.

The court was told that Mr Thomas was punched repeatedly in the face

and stabbed in the body, buttocks, and arms with a screwdriver during

the attack by the two men.

Gorevan had threatened he would have his penis and ears cut off and

his legs would be broken.

Dean and Gorevan were found guilty by a jury earlier this month of

another wounding and the false imprisonment of a 24-year-old man.

Yesterday they were each sentenced to two years for the attack on Mr

Thomas plus a further 12 months on the other charges.

Mr Michael Farmer, prosecuting, told the hearing at which the three

appeared for sentence yesterday that Mr Thomas had gone through a

''messy divorce'' from Geoffrey Dean's sister, Debbie, the mother of his

two children.

Erica Dean, with whom Mr Thomas had had a relationship when they were

at school, had approached the footballer, telling him her relationship

with her husband was not good and saying she had information that would

help him in his divorce dispute with Debbie, said Mr Farmer.

They had sexual intercourse in Mr Thomas's car on two occasions during

meetings in lonely country lanes, he said.

''The prosecution submit this was clearly part of a concerted plan to

lull the complainant into a false sense of security,'' he said.

As Mr Thomas was having sex with Mrs Dean in a field near Dyserth,

near Prestatyn, on August 20 last year the driver's window was smashed

and he was attacked.

Mr Marc Leon, defending Geoffrey Dean, said Dean's marriage was at a

low point and he had seen the problems his sister and her children had

during her divorce from Mr Thomas.

The trial of the two men on the second set of charges had heard they

kidnapped 24-year-old Jonathan Bennett, in May 1992 and held him in a

flat.

They had used pliers on his ears and burnt one of them with a

cigarette.

Mr Thomas, a former player with Manchester United and a string of

other leading clubs during a 25-year career, was not in court. He is

awaiting sentence after being found guilty earlier this month of selling

forged bank notes to young football apprentices at Wrexham.