Les Incompetents have announced that they are to split whilst seemingly on the verge of making it big. The band also claim that this was always their plan and has nothing to do with the attack on frontman Billy Bell that left him in a coma.

Bell was, as previously reported, attacked in Camden in June while returning home from a gig. During the attack he hit his head on the pavement and was left in a coma for several days. Surgery to remove pressure on his brain was successful and the vocalist is now recuperating at home. The man accused of assaulting Bell, Christian Briggs, is due to appear in court later this month.

At the time of the attack, the bands plans to split were, apparently, already in action with the band preparing for a series of farewell gigs, which they were subsequently unable to play.

Via a statement posted on their MySpace Blog on Friday the band said, “The rumours are true… the six of us ARE no longer going to be playing together as Les Incompetents will cease to exist. You might be wondering why, on the cusp of an album, TV performances and other good stuff, we decided to kill the dream. Basically we realised that a time must come in every man’s life when he must decide between what is easy and what is right. And by the end of the tour we just realised that there were too many ideas between the six of us to try and hone into one thing. Meaning that whatever we ended up producing, certain people would be unhappy.”