Christmas reveller swallowed his own tongue after rampaging Leeds thugs knocked him and friend unconscious

The victim’s friend frantically tried to unblock the man’s airway as he lay unconscious on the pavement, alongside another of his friends who was also knocked out by a single blow.

One suffered a fractured skull and two serious bleeds to the brain. He has not been able to drive for the past seven months and is still uncertain if he will fully recover.

Just half-an-hour before, Pshtiwan Jabar and Diar Borhan Haso had been seen on other CCTV cameras attacking a man with broken bottles outside Space nightclub on Hirst’s Yard. He suffered deep cuts to his head and needed hospital treatment.

Jabar and Haso, both aged 21, appeared on remand at Leeds Crown Court today. Haso, of Park Lane, Leeds, admitted two counts of Section 20 GBH and one of ABH. Jabar, of Brignall Garth, Burmantofts, admitted one count of Section 20 GBH, and two of ABH.

They were part of a gang of four that had left the city after the bottling attack in the early hours December 25, last year, but were then seen returning and walking along Park Row at around 4am.

CCTV played to the court showed that they stopped and said something to three men who were simply waiting on the street for a taxi. Jabar then slowly danced towards one of the males, who was looking the other way, and struck him hard to the face with his left arm or elbow. The man was knocked immediately unconscious.

Haso, then turned and struck the second male, sending him to the floor unconscious, before trying to lash out at the third man, who backed away.

The group then left the scene while the third man tended to his friends. Both were laid motionless on the pavement, and he put them both in the recovery position and desperately tried to unblock the airway of one victim.

Prosecutor Jade Edwards said a taxi then arrived and they were able to get the two men to hospital. In a victim impact statement by the friends of the two victim, he described it as the “most frightening thing he had ever experienced”.

She said he thought his friends had been killed, and that he was next.

The court heard that neither defendant had any previous convictions.

Mitigating for Haso, Richard Holland conceded that it could have easily ended in murder of manslaughter. He said: “The incidents were entirely needless and unprovoked.

"For what it’s worth, and it may be very little, he wants to apologise for the harm he has caused.”

He said that Haso fled Kurdistan in 2014 after ISIS invaded, and he remains uncertain if his family are still alive.

For Jabar, Phillip Mahoney said he too had fled Kurdistan and he too was remorseful and apologetic, but admitted it “probably offered little comfort” to the victims.

Judge Rodney Jameson KC jailed Haso for 39 months, and Jabar for 25 months.