Vicious Reece Kent, 19, repeatedly punched Ken Oliver in the head before kicking him on the floor because he mistakenly thought he was the father of a girl he knew.Cancer sufferer Ken, who has been given just three months to live, was left in a pool of blood on his doorstep with these horrific injuries.
Reece, 19, admitted carrying out the unprovoked attack -- which was filmed on a mobile phone -- and pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm.
But grandfather-of-three Ken, of Broxbourne, Herts., watched in disbelief as his attacker walked free from court last week with a six-month suspended sentence.
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"I am appalled at the sentence. They were swearing and laughing in my face. He should have been locked up for what he did. His barrister said he feels remorse but when he turned up in court he just sneered at me. I hope he is ashamed for the rest of his life."
St Albans Crown Court heard that Kent and two friends began banging on his door at 3.30am on October 23 asking for someone called Molly.
As Kent launched a vicious attack on Ken, his friends filmed the assault with a mobile phone in front of his wife Pauline, 64, and his three-year-old granddaughter. The pensioner had undergone surgery to remove a third of his lung just five weeks earlier.
He suffered a cracked left cheekbone, extensive bruising round his left eye and face and a dislocated toe. Ken spent a week in intensive care at Queen's Hospital, Romford, Essex, and a CT scan revealed bleeding in the brain and left temple.
Recorder Peter Digney told him: "The man you kicked was a man who had enough problems without you adding to them."
He had decided by the "slightest margin" not to send him to jail.