A group of drunk teenagers attacked a Royal Navy sailor who tried to stop them from killing a seagull, a court has heard.
Off-duty serviceman Toby Boothroyd spotted the four teenagers crushing the bird under their feet near the port of Torquay, Devon.
But when he and his girlfriend intervened, the attackers, Adrian Heaps, 19, Matthew Fardoe, 18, Deniz Duman, 19, and Charles Laybourne, 19, knocked him to the ground and kicked him kick to the head as he lay helpless, Exeter Crown court heard.
Mr Boothroyd suffered a broken finger, multiple bruises and needed stitches for a split lip following the attack last September.
His injuries forced him to miss an inter-service athletics event in which he would have represented the Royal Navy.
CCTV footage shown to jurors showed the gang attacking Mr Boothroyd and police officers present at the scene.
The group left a nightclub at 3 a.m. and “was fighting,” the court heard.
The four defendants admitted assault and causing actual bodily harm, and were given a year of community orders and ordered to pay compensation of £150 to each of the victims.
Heaps also admitted to a separate battery and assault on a rescue worker, while Fardoe admitted to two assaults on rescuers.
“Continuous and horrific violence”
Simon Burns, prosecuting, said: “These defendants were messing up for a fight and the catalyst for the violence was a trampled injured seagull.
“It led to drunken, yobbish behavior and sustained, gruesome violence.”
Judge James Townsend described the case as an “appalling incidence of sustained violence” committed after the defendants “had all drunk far too much”.
He added: “Violence of this type, especially kicking the ground, can result in very serious injuries or, on some occasions, death,” and called attacks on police “ shameful”.
The defendants were spared jail time due to their age, immaturity and lack of similar convictions, the court said.
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