A VICIOUS mob attack, which left a man with a bone sticking out of his skin, has seen three Hatfield offenders locked up.

Dean Phillips may never recover from an appalling break to his ankle and his foot twisted into an unnatural position, after he was punched, kicked and stamped on as he lay helpless on the ground.

The trio, Stephen Biggs, 20, of Wood Close, Joshua Caswell, 20, of Howe Dell, and Glen Furgusson, 19, of The Paddock, all pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm on Mr Phillips in the early hours of February 27.

Luton Crown Court heard Mr Phillips was going home, eating a kebab, after an evening out, when he came across the three defendants in the town centre.

He remembered a bottle being swung at him and ending up on the ground.

The three were then so wrapped up in the attack they didn’t notice police approaching.

Mr Phillips, who underwent surgery to his leg – requiring a metal plate, pins and screws – wrote in his police statement: “Since this happened I don’t feel like the same person. It’s just shocking what they did to my leg.”

He added he would never walk through the centre at night again.

Judge Michael Kay believed the trio were drunk and had used a bottle, saying Caswell concentrated on the victim’s upper half, kicking his body and head, while the others delivered blows to the lower half; with the stamping on the leg showing an attempt to break it.

Passing the sentence Judge Kay remarked judges became hardened to hearing accounts of unprovoked, mindless acts of violence, but occasionally a case came along that “takes the breath away ... and this is one of them”.

Declaring it a cowardly attack, he said: “It’s the sort of behaviour that makes right-minded people throw their hands up in the air in disbelief.”

The attackers were sentenced to a young offenders’ institute for two years and three months.