THREE men involved in a terrifying assault in Nottingham's Old Market Square behaved like "drunken louts", according to a judge.

Victim Phillip Kerr was left with a fractured cheekbone, swelling and bruising after he was punched in the jaw by one of the trio in an unprovoked attack.

Judge Dudley Bennett sent Scott Watson and Christopher Gray to prison for the attack and ordered the third offender, Martin Eddyshaw, to pay £500 compensation to Mr Kerr.

Judge Bennett told Eddyshaw: "Day in and day out in these courts, in the newspapers nationally and locally, you are reading about violence in Nottingham, drunken louts behaving just the way you three did.

"You were out with a couple of louts, quite frankly."

Mr Kerr had been walking alone across the square at 10.40pm on St Patrick's Day, on March 17 this year, when Watson asked him for a cigarette.

Mr Kerr said he did not smoke and carried on walking, leaving Watson to return to his group nearby.

After speaking to them, Watson ran after Mr Kerr with Eddyshaw and Gray. Watson barged into him, Eddyshaw shoved him and Gray punched him in the jaw. All three were sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court for assault causing actual bodily harm.

Judge Bennett said: "This was an unprovoked, gratuitous, drunken, violent attack upon a wholly innocent member of the public."

CCTV of the incident, he said, showed Mr Kerr had done absolutely nothing to justify the attack. Gray, 24, of Hodgkin Close, Clifton, received 15 months in prison.

Watson, 22, of Lindfield Road, Broxtowe Estate, was given 15 months for the assault and nine months consecutively for a robbery the same night. Both offences were admitted.

After the attack on Mr Kerr, Watson took a woman's phone as she sent a text at a bus stop in Queen Street.

Simon Eckersley, in mitigation for Gray and Watson, said both men accepted full responsibility for what they had done.

Eddyshaw, 22, of Allendale Avenue, Aspley, who also pleaded guilty, was given a prison sentence of 12 months, suspended for two years, and a five-month curfew.

Richard Posner, in mitigation, said: "It's clear from what you read about him this behaviour was wholly out of character."