A Dublin man who repeatedly kicked the head of a Lithuanian man in "an unprovoked, absolutely vicious" attack which left him in a vegetative state had his sentence increased from seven to 10 years' imprisonment by the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.
The sentence is to start only after he completes a two-year sentence already imposed for another serious assault.
Mr Justice Nial Fennelly said that the attack by Kevin Dunne was "an unprovoked, absolutely vicious, unrestrained piece of sadistic violence".
Kevin Dunne (19), of Ballyfermot Drive, Dublin pleaded guilty last October to causing serious harm to Mr Vytautas Sukys (48) at Royal Canal Bank, Phibsboro on September 25th, 2004 and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.
He was also given a two-year concurrent sentence on the same date for an assault on a French man.
The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed the leniency of the sentence and also on the grounds that the two-year sentence should be consecutive because the offences were committed while Dunne was on bail.
Mr Sukys, a trained pilot, came to live and work in Ireland in 2003 and had hoped to raise enough money as a landscape gardener to allow his family to work here.
He was left severely brain damaged after the brutal attack and cannot walk unaided or speak and his face has had to be reconstructed. He now lives in a nursing home in Swords, Co Dublin where his wife Neringa and medical staff care for him.
The public has donated more than €100,000 to a fund set up by the Garda following the attack to help Mr Sukys and his family.
Mr Justice Fennelly, presiding at the three-judge Appeal Court, said that Mr Sukys was a Lithuanian working here with a family that he was working to support. All that has been extensively and utterly destroyed and Mr Sukys is now in a vegetative state and has to be looked after full time.
The judge said it was absolutely inexplicable how somebody could commit such violence on another person. He said that the court was satisfied that the sentencing judge had committed an error and had been unduly lenient in the sentence of seven years. The court increased the sentence to 10 years and ordered it to run consecutively to the two- year sentence which was imposed at the same time as the original sentence for an assault by Dunne on a French national.