A POLISH man who left a fellow countryman who his eye hanging out in a vicious drunken attack has been jailed for two years and four months.

Marciej Stadnik, 29, punched his victim on the ground, stamped on his face then smashed a breeze block in to his head in the sustained attack.

Despite passers-by thinking Stadnik was going to kill Grzegorz Slumny he was initially only charged with common assault.

But District Judge Simon Cooper questioned the decision of the police and Crown Prosecution Service when the case appeared before him for sentence.

The case was adjourned, as the defendant had not turned up, and when he was caught he was charged with assault causing actual bodily harm and sent to Swindon Crown Court.

Stadnik then tried to get the more serious charge thrown out as an abuse of process as he had already admitted the lesser charge, but a judge refused the application.

Simon Goodman, prosecuting, told how the incident took place in Trowbridge on Saturday, August 31, 2013, into the following morning.

The two men were seen running down Castle Street when Stadnik grabbed his victim by the scruff of the neck, near road works, causing him to fall to the ground.

"A taxi driver saw what went on. He describes a great number of punches. It looked like he was trying to kill him," he said.

"He stamped with all his force on the man's face four or five times.

"Then he jumped into the hole of the road works, picked up either a breezeblock or block of tarmac, and slammed it on to the head of the man.

"The passengers in the taxi were screaming 'He's going to kill him'. The driver said he had served in the forces but this was the worst thing he had ever seen."

Another witness told a similar story and she said when he got up he was covered in blood and 'it looked like his eye was hanging out'.

Stadnik, of no fixed abode but formerly of School Lane, Staverton, pleaded guilty to actual bodily harm.

The court heard he was on early release from prison after being jailed for six months for another assault in April 2013.

Gemma White, defending, said that while the victim told the police he didn't know his attacker her client said they had been acquaintances before and after the incident.

"The devil appears to be in the alcohol when it comes to Mr Stadnik's thinking process while drinking," she said.

She said he was in a long-term relationship and had a job in a factory which he could return to when he is freed.

Jailing him Judge Tim Mousley QC said: "This was a vicious and prolonged attack in a public street in the early hours of the morning.

"Your attack on Mr Slumny involved repeated punches and when he was on the ground you continued to punch him, you stamped on his head and you struck him with a rock.

"As a result of you violence he suffered many injuries, the most serious was a fractured eye socket and he bled profusely."