A group of drunken teenagers attacked a Royal Navy sailor who tried to stop them stamping a seagull to death, a court has heard.
Toby Boothroyd, an off-duty serviceman, spotted the four teenagers crushing the bird underfoot near Torquay Harbour, Devon.
But when he and his girlfriend intervened, the attackers, Adrian Heaps, 19, Matthew Fardoe, 18, Deniz Duman, 19, and Charles Laybourne, 19, punched him to the ground and kicked him in the head as he lay defenceless, Exeter Crown Court heard.
Mr Boothroyd suffered a broken finger, multiple bruises and needed stitches for a split lip following the assault last September.
His injuries meant he was forced to miss an inter-service athletics event in which he would have represented the Royal Navy.
CCTV footage played to jurors showed the gang attacking Mr Boothroyd and police officers attending the scene.
The group left a nightclub at 3am and were “spoiling for a fight”, the court heard.
All four defendants admitted assault and causing actual bodily harm, and were given one year of community orders and instructed to pay ￡150 compensation to each of the victims.
Heaps also admitted to a separate battery and the assault of an emergency worker, while Fardoe admitted to two assaults on emergency workers.
‘Sustained and horrific violence’
Simon Burns, prosecuting, said: “These defendants were spoiling for a fight and the catalyst for the violence was an injured seagull being stamped on.
“It led to drunken, yobbish behaviour and sustained and horrific 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 sort, particularly kicking people on the ground, can lead to very serious injury or on some occasions, death”, and called the attacks on police “disgraceful”.
The defendants were spared jail because of their age, immaturity and lack of similar convictions, the court heard.