Race hate 'animals' are caged; 34 years for beasts.

Three black teenagers who attacked a white man like a pack of wild animals were locked up for a total of 34 years yesterday.

The gang picked on 24-year-old Gareth Wilshaw out of the blue and chanted "white bastard" as he was punched to the ground and kicked in the head up to 30 times. The attack put Mr Wilshaw in a coma for three months and he may never walk again.

Frenzied Danau Drummond, Marlon Howell and Gary Hutchinson, all 18, shouted racist abuse as they repeatedly stamped on his motionless body, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Car mechanic Mr Wilshaw was picked on because Drummond was furious at being thrown out of a nightclub in Nottingham.

He had lost a ring and Howell later told police: "He said his ring was worth a lot of money, so somebody would have to pay. He said: 'I am going to have to take it out on someone'."

Witness Philip Ellis, who saw innocent Mr Wilshaw chosen as the target, said: "It was disgusting. It wasn't just kicking - it was stamping on his head. I could hear them shouting 'white bastard'."

He added: "My natural instinct was to go and help, but my sense told me not to - otherwise I would probably have been with him now."

The attack on Mr Wilshaw was so savage that when his parents Ron and Yvonne first saw him in hospital he still had the imprint of a shoe over one eye.

Drummond, of Spondon, Derby, was sentenced to 10 years in a young offenders' institution for causing grievous bodily harm.

He got an extra 30 months for wounding another man in an earlier attack.

Howell, of Normanton, Derby, and Hutchinson, of Spondon, each got 11 years in a young offenders' institution.

Outside court Mr Wilshaw's tearful father said: "Although I was satisfied with the sentences, they can take up their lives again when they come out.

"Gareth can't."