Justice? Yob who left England fan in a coma after attack in Walsall Yates's walks free

Ben Mornington had drunk seven or eight pints of alcohol when he struck his victim once in the face at Yates's bar on Leicester Street in Walsall hours after England had beaten Wales in the European Championships on June 16.

Mornington, 30, hit him with such force that the victim smashed his head off the floor and he was left fighting for his life.

A barmaid who witnessed the attack said the noise of the head striking the surface was like 'an egg cracking'.

The man's family was told to prepare for the worse after the attack and in a statement read out in court, he stated he cannot remember the attack and has had to be signed off from work as a labourer for six months after he suffered a bleed on the brain.

Prosecutor Mr Henry Skudra told Wolverhampton Crown Court that Mornington, of Chantry Avenue in Blakenall, handed himself into police two days after the attack on June 18. That followed an appeal in the Express & Star, which published CCTV images of him in Yates.

The bar's CCTV, shown to the court, shows the men together before Mornington launches the punch which left the man motionless on the floor behind him.

He had gone to police and shown 'obvious remorse' for the offence which was 'highly out of character', according to Mr Stephen Cadwallader, defending.

Mr Cadwallader added the victim, who has to attend monthly check ups at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, had himself since been arrested by police three times following the attack.

Mr Cadwallader said the 'harm was plainly not insignificant' but that Mornington had been provoked into a something out of character by the victim's girlfriend. The court heard she had been 'flirting' with men in Yates's and Mornington had been annoyed by that and a comment from the victim.

He also said Mornington's valeting and car wash business would be affected, along with his wife and three children.

Mr Cadwallader said: "If he were to lose his liberty the affect on them would be bigger than it would be on him."

Judge James Burbidge QC told Mornington: "It is clear because of the CCTV that there was some interaction before you launched the single punch. You should have reflected on your actions way before you launched the punch. You are a well-built man."

But the judge told him the crime was committed in 'wholly exceptional circumstances' and added that Mornington, who pleaded guilty of a charge of causing grievous bodily harm at a hearing on September 21, was 'perhaps...entitled to one chance in life'.

He gave him a jail term of 16 months, suspended for 18 months, and told him he must undertake 180 hours unpaid work over the next 12 months.

Mornington must also pay his victim £1,000 in compensation.