8:52am Monday 13th July 2009
TWO TEENAGERS have been jailed for a violent attack which was filmed on CCTV.
They were shown punching, kicking and stamping on the head of their victim as he lay helpless on the street.
Adam James Wheller and Christopher Geoffrey Wick, both 19, were both given custodial sentences at Dorchester Crown Court for what Judge Gary Burrell labelled a ‘sickening’ and ‘cowardly’ attack.
He said that the prolonged assault could have left the victim with brain damage.
Both youths admitted charges of affray and Wheller, of Honeysuckle Close, Weymouth, was sentenced to nine months at a Young Offender Institution while Wick, of Hetherly Road, Weymouth, was sentenced to six months.
Prosecutor Simon Jones said that at around 1.20am on March 15 the pair were among a group of youths picked up on CCTV in Weymouth town centre who appeared to be in confrontation with a man wearing a red top.
Mr Jones said Wheller and Wick then pursued the man through the town centre for ‘a couple of minutes’.
Describing what the CCTV footage showed, Mr Jones said: “Mr Wheller instigates the offence by tripping up the victim and both Wheller and Wick repeatedly punch the individual whilst on the ground.
“They also aim kicks at his head and Wheller at the end of the incident aims two stamps at the victim’s head.”
Mr Jones said Wheller and Wick were tracked by CCTV cameras to a nearby pub where they were later arrested but the victim of the attack was never traced. He said both teenagers claimed the man had been acting aggressively towards their group earlier in the evening to provoke the violence.
Tim Shorter, mitigating, said that one member of Wheller and Wick’s group had been involved in an earlier altercation with the victim but they accepted their actions had gone too far.
He said: “This was clearly an over-reaction to whatever this man had done.”
Mr Shorter added that, despite the apparent violence of the attack, the victim did not seek to involve the police himself.
He said that both defendants felt ‘disgust, horror, shame and mortification at what they had done.”
Judge Gary Burrell told the youths: “Town centre gratuitous violence of this degree, particularly at night, cannot possibly be tolerated.
“It was a cowardly, sustained and extreme attack by both of you fuelled by alcohol and anger. The assault was sickening and appears to have been unprovoked.”
Judge Burrell said Wheller’s actions in stamping on the man’s head could have caused brain damage or even killed him and sentenced him to nine months in custody. He said that Wick was also ‘committed’ in the attack and sentenced him to six months in a Young Offender Institution.
Judge Burrell said: “It was the ferocity of the attack and the fact that it was such a committed attack in a public place which makes this a very serious offence.”
Do You know the victim of the attack? Call the newsroom at he Dorset Echo on 01305 830999 or email newsdesk@ dorsetecho. co.uk
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