10:38am Wednesday 25th November 2009
A man will be sentenced today after he was found guilty of killing a 16-year-old Arab student following a late-night racist row.
George Austin, 22, punched Mohammed al-Majed, from Qatar, sending him flying on to the pavement where he hit his head and suffered brain injuries.
He died in hospital three days after the attack outside a kebab shop on Hastings seafront in East Sussex on August 22 last year.
Jurors found Austin guilty of manslaughter following a trial at Lewes Crown Court last month.
His co-defendants, Paul Rockett, 21, and Alexander Quinn, 19, were also found guilty of racially aggravated common assault and wounding with intent respectively.
During the three-and-a-half-week trial the court heard how trouble started when Austin and his friends approached a group of foreign students gathered outside the Kebab Hut, which was a popular haunt of theirs.
One of Mohammed’s black friends, 17-year-old Peter Henworth, was racially abused by Austin’s gang who called him “n*****”, and a punch was thrown at him by Rockett, although he missed.
Sensing trouble, Mohammed, who was inside the kebab shop with his cousin Abdullah Alnowais, 16, and friend Mojeb Qatani, 14, decided to flee the scene as he did not want to get caught up in the unfolding drama.
However, Austin spotted Mohammed running away and punched him so hard in the face that it knocked him off his feet, sending him flying onto the pavement and rendering him unconscious.
Meanwhile, Mojeb was attacked by Quinn who struck him with a bottle, leaving him with a 6.5cm laceration to his head.
Mohammed was found to have suffered a brain haemorrhage and a fracture to his skull and died at King’s College Hospital after going into cardiac arrest.
The teenager, who was studying English at EF International Language School in White Rock, Hastings, was due to have returned home to his family in Qatar just a week later.
Rockett and Quinn were arrested soon afterwards but Austin fled to Cyprus. He was arrested by officers when he flew into Gatwick Airport on November 20 last year.
Rockett, of Ham Lane, Burwash, near Etchingham, Quinn, of Mountbatten Close, Hastings, and Austin of Barkworth Road, Bermondsey, south east London, will be sentenced at Lewes Crown Court from 2pm.
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