Thugs locked up for brain damage attack

THE father of a man left with severe brain damage following an unprovoked assault has described his attackers' four-year sentences as unjust.

Peter Nicholson, 46, said the punishment handed out to Rhys Cleaver and David Gibson, both 16, for the brutal attack on his son Marc was "pathetic".

Marc, 24, remains in hospital and is unlikely to ever fully recover from the injuries he suffered after he was attacked as he walked home with his girlfriend on May 22 last year.

Terrified Sarah Jane Kay said she was "sickened" by the blows as she tried to stop the unprovoked attack, near Crewe Toll in Pilton.

Mr Nicolson said: "They've virtually taken his life away and this is what they get?

"He might not get better and they'll be out in under two years. It's not justice - it's pathetic."

At the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, Cleaver and Gibson were each sentenced to four years.

Cleaver was also sentenced to two months' detention for breaching bail conditions by threatening witnesses.

Gibson, who was 15 at the time of the attack, was given a further four months for posting a message on a social networking site asking a girl to change her statement and threatening witnesses.

At an earlier hearing in December, at the High Court in Edinburgh, Cleaver and Gibson admitted assaulting Mr Nicholson to the danger of his life and permanently impairing him.

Prosecutor Pino Di Emidio told the court that Cleaver, Gibson and their friends were drinking alcohol on the street. Mr Di Emidio said a police van stopped to note details of the group.

"Rhys Cleaver was cheeky to the police officers who put him into the back of the van to get him to calm down," he said.

After the police let Cleaver go, the group, which included two schoolgirls, walked along Crewe Road North, where they met Mr Nicholson and Ms Kay.

The youths shouted insults, then Cleaver punched Mr Nicholson and knocked him to the ground.

Mr Nicholson got up and ran across the road, but Cleaver and Gibson caught up with him before kicking him and stamping on his head.

He was taken, unconscious, to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary where surgeons performed an emergency tracheotomy.

Doctors said the most likely cause of the brain injury was lack of oxygen because of obstruction to his airway. They claimed that without the operation he would have died.

In December, Mr Di Emidio said Mr Nicholson was now able to move his hands and gesture and could speak some words.

Judge Lady Clark of Calton said: "I take a very serious view of gratuitous, unprovoked violence, which has the potential for very serious harm."