Yobs repeatedly stamp on man's head and leave him for dead after he asked them to keep noise down

A devoted father was beaten senseless and left for dead after asking a gang of yobs to keep the noise down whilst his teenage son slept.

Gary Yeomans, 44, was brutally attacked during a late-night confrontation with the thugs who knocked him to the ground before stamping on his head.

He had asked the group to be quiet once already that evening. After speaking to them from his bedroom window, he later went outside to reason with them.

But as he approached the drunken gang one of them violently attacked the father-of-two, sending him reeling to the ground with a single punch.

Defenceless, he lay on the floor as his attackers kicked and punched him to within an inch of his life before running off laughing.

Yesterday, as a young career criminal with a string of previous convictions for violent attacks began an indeterminate sentence, police said he was lucky to have survived.

Highlighting the startling similarities with the attack which left 47-year-old father of three Gary Newlove dead, the police blamed Britain's growing binge-drinking culture on the rising number of victims.

The attack on Mr Yeomans, they said, was the latest shocking example in a long list of alcohol-fuelled attacks.

Last week, 17-year-old Joe Dinsdale was stabbed to death on an estate plagued by drunken yobs - less than 24 hours after law graduate David Burns was punched to the ground and left fighting for his life when he confronted teenagers causing trouble.

On the same day, Good Samaritan Nick Baty, 48, died after a month in a coma following an assault. He had been attacked as he tried to help an injured youth who was lying in a car park.

The attacks prompted Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, to hit out at the drinks trade for selling beer "cheaper than water" and making profits "on the back of this misery".

His outburst and the recent attacks have piled the pressure on Gordon Brown to take firm action over teenage drunkenness.

But despite the rising toll of victims, he has hinted that Labour's controversial late-night drinking will stay.

Mr Yeomans confronted the yobs outside his home in Maltby, Rotherham, last April. He was woken by them in the early hours and had asked them to keep the noise down as his 17-year-old son and partner were still asleep.

At first, they appeared to do as he asked. But when they began shouting and swearing again later that night, Mr Yeomans, whose 12-year-old daughter was staying with friends at the time of the attack, went downstairs and confronted them in the street.

Within seconds he was punched to the floor. Unable to fight back he was repeatedly kicked before drunken Smith, 24, repeatedly stamped on his head in a terrifying escalation of violence.

Mr Yeomans was then left to die by the gang. Unconscious and bleeding heavily from a series of wounds, his terrified partner called the police and he was rushed to hospital where he was treated for a catalogue of appalling injuries.

He woke up a short time late but could remember nothing of the attack.

Smith - who earned the nickname Bomber on account of setting fire to his former school - denied any involvement but after a two-day trial at Sheffield Crown Court last week he was convicted of grievous bodily harm with intent.

Jailing him indefinitely, Judge Roger Keen QC told him that he was one of a growing breed of violent offenders, adding: "The public are dismayed that there are increasing reports of this type of offending.

"Your victim was doing no more than trying to protect his family. You will go to prison and you will remain in prison until you are no longer a danger to the public."

The court was told that Smith, who must serve at least two and a half years before being considered for release, had an appalling record of violence.

In 2000, he was sent to a young offenders' institution - then aged 16 - for reckless arson after he set fire to the library at Maltby Comprehensive, causing £1 million of damage to the school.

The court heard he started the fire because he "craved notoriety".

Smith, whose girlfriend is seven months' pregnant, was released in 2004. But just months later he was arrested for grievous bodily harm after pouring scalding hot water over another victim in a revenge attack.

Det Con Rob Platts, who led the investigation, said: "It was pure luck that Mr Yeomans survived. Mr Yeomans and his children were sleeping when noise outside woke him up.

"He put his head out of the bedroom window and asked the group outside to keep it down because there were children sleeping, and they did initially, but not long after it started up again.

"He went outside to once again ask them to keep it down and was viciously attacked."

He said the case had worrying similarities with the death of Mr Newlove who was killed when he remonstrated with a gang of drunken yobs who were vandalising his wife's car outside his home in Warrington.

"The majority will be in a drunken state and will not think twice about their actions and the consequences," he added.

"This is not common but unfortunately there are people everywhere who think anti-social drunken behaviour is acceptable, and this is an example of that."