Bhim Kohli, 80, was walking his dog when he was was racially abused, punched, kicked, and slapped in the face in an attack by a boy, 15, while his 13-year-old female friend filmed
A daughter of an 80-year-old dog walker who was brutally beaten in a park attack has told of his last words to her before he died of his injuries.
Bhim Kohli, 80, was racially abused, punched, kicked, and slapped in the face with a shoe while on his knees in a brutal park attack. A 15-year-old boy was ordered to serve seven years’ detention and a 13-year-old girl was handed a three-year youth rehabilitation order by a High Court judge at Leicester Crown Court for the manslaughter of Mr Kohli, who suffered a broken neck and fractured ribs just yards from his home.
His son Virinder found Mr Kohli on the ground in “obvious pain” with injuries to his left side and his neck. In his dying moments, the grandad told a paramedic he had been attacked by a boy, who punched and kicked him as he was racially abused. He also spoke to his daughter Susan Friday, who relived her dad’s last seconds as he lay dying in court.
She told the court: “Whilst by his side, I knelt down and said, ‘Dad, what has happened?’ He screamed, ‘My neck. my neck, my neck, lift my neck’. This was not his normal tone. He was in agony, almost screaming. I have never heard him cry out in pain about anything like that before.”
Allotment-loving Mr Kohli was rushed to hospital but sadly couldn’t be saved and died the following evening. He had suffered fractured ribs and a spinal cord injury after an “intense attack”. The teens meanwhile fled the scene and were later heard “bragging” about what they had done.
The girl had filmed a series of video clips in which Mr Kohli was slapped with the shoe by the masked boy and another where the 80-year-old lay motionless on the ground, the court previously heard. Mr Justice Turner said it had been a “cowardly and violent attack” on an elderly man who did “nothing to deserve” what happened to him.
A six-week trial heard that Mr Kohli called out for help while walking his dog Rocky when he was assaulted by the boy while the girl laughed and filmed parts of the attack on her phone in Franklin Park, Braunstone Town, near Leicester on September 1 last year. Both children denied their part in the grandfather’s death but were convicted of manslaughter by a jury at the same court in April, while the boy was cleared of Mr Kohli’s murder.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu KC told the sentencing hearing on Thursday that there was “deliberate humiliation” of Mr Kohli during the attack that came against a backdrop of “bullying and antagonising” of the pensioner by other local youths that the boy must have been aware of.
Mr Kohli’s children found him lying on the ground in agony when he told his daughter that he had been called a “P***” during the attack.
In a victim impact statement, Mr Kohli’s daughter Susan told the packed courtroom on Thursday: “He was in so much pain, he was screaming out. It was horrendous and we have never seen him like this. We knew he was very poorly and in severe pain but we thought he would go to Leicester Royal Infirmary and be fine. We never imagined he would never return home.”
She said the family had been left “broken” by what had happened to her father, adding: “They left my dad on his own, helpless and in pain. Losing dad in these cruel, violent and deeply shocking circumstances feels like our hearts have been pulled apart. We can’t put into words the pain we feel everyday – we have never felt hurt and sadness like this.”
Mr Kohli’s grandson Simranjit Kohli said in a statement read by Mr Sandhu that he was “haunted” by his grandfather’s death. He said: “It’s painful for me and my family that we will never get to see if he is proud. We won’t get to see the smile on his face when his grandkids get a house, get a car, then get married and have kids of their own.
“I was the first one out of my family at the scene. Not a day goes by when I think if I were minutes earlier I could have stopped what happened. There is of course sadness and sorrow, there’s also hate, anger and rage. Everywhere I go I’m haunted by the thought I could be with him if things had happened differently that day.”