LARRY Haifa’s survival saved Jesse Stewart Costin from a sentence four times longer than the 18-month jail term handed down yesterday, Judge Garry Neilson said.
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Costin, 20, was given a three-year sentence with an 18-month minimum term for the punch that felled Mr Haifa outside the Roi Bar in Dean Street and left him fighting for life.
He received a cumulative one-month jail term on a charge of affray.
His sentence was backdated to September 23 because had previously spent two months in custody making him eligible for release on April 21, 2012.
Judge Neilson said Mr Haifa was lucky to survive the injuries that he suffered.
Had he not, Mr Costin would’ve faced a much longer jail term, Judge Neilson said.
He said Costin, 20, would have to live with the realisation that Mr Haifa would have ongoing physical problems for the rest of his life.
“I accept that the offender’s action was impulsive and unplanned,” Judge Neilson said in the District Court in Albury.
“His ability to gauge what he was doing was impaired by his ingestion of alcohol.”
Mr Haifa, who was 23 when the incident happened in the early hours of December 24 last year, did not attend court for the sentencing.
But his mother, Jamile, sat in the back row holding hands with a supporter and listened carefully during the sentencing, which lasted about 90 minutes.
She said in the court foyer that she accepted whatever the judge imposed as fair and that everyone had to live under the law.
“My heart goes out to his mum and dad. I am a mother too,” she said.
Costin, from Killara near Wodonga, appeared for sentence on charges of recklessly causing grievous bodily harm and affray.
Judge Neilson outlined the circumstances of the attack near the Roi Bar in the early hours of Christmas Eve.
Costin had been inside the bar until he went to rescue friends from a fight outside.
“That is a perfectly understandable and human reaction in accordance with our national ethos,” Judge Neilson said.
But Costin was unable to break up the fight, received blows himself and admitted getting angry.
He saw Mr Haifa standing on a median strip in Dean Street and punched him without words being exchanged.
“That one punch had dire consequences,” Judge Neilson said.
“The offender tripped, which would have put the full force of his body weight behind the punch.”
A number of witnesses heard cracking as Mr Haifa’s head made contact with the road.
Costin left the scene following direction from a security guard.
Read Larry Haifa's reaction to Costin's sentence, and his courtroom apology, inside today's
