Three men have been sentenced for an unprovoked attack on a teenager that was filmed by the Greater Manchester Police helicopter as it flew over.

Simon Starrs (born 26/03/1988) of Hondford Road, Benchill, was jailed for five years for section 18 assault.

Sean Cummins (born 05/07/1988) of Sommerby Drive, Woodhouse Park, was jailed for three years four months for section 18 assault. William Reilly (born 04/05/1985) of Altcar Walk, Woodhouse Park, received a 12 month suspended sentence for violent disorder. All three were sentenced today, Monday 8 August 2011, at Manchester Crown Square.

On Friday 22 October 2010, Reilly, Starrs and Cummins had been drinking in pubs in Benchill and went onto a party in the Royal Oak area.

They were walking home at about 2.40am the following morning when they encountered the victim, a 17-year-old boy they had never met nor even seen before, who was walking home alone.

They started arguing with the boy and he tried to run away from them. The three men followed and caught up with him when he stumbled over a kerb.

One of them smashed a bottle in his face and all three of them punched, kicked and stamped on him as well as using the broken bottle to cut his face.

The boy lost consciousness during the attack.

A man, who was passing and saw the attack, tried to intervene but was threatened with the broken glass bottle. The man ran to the nearest houses to try and get help.

At the same time, Greater Manchester Police⿿s force helicopter was returning to its base after being out in connection with another incident and the crew spotted the end of the attack, began recording it and radioed it through to control.

Reilly, Starrs and Cummins can be seen kicking and stamping on the victim and even taking running jumps at him.

The crew were able to track where the three went after they walked off and guide officers on the ground to arrest them.

On arrest, Starrs tried to lie about his involvement and said he had blood on his trainers because he had been trying to help the victim.

The boy suffered a bleed to the brain, multiple fractures to his face , had stitches to his eyebrow, lips and collar bone. His eyes were that badly swollen, he could not open them for five days.

He even had the imprint of one of the men⿿s trainers in the bruises on his face.

Detective Constable Louise Moss, based at West Didsbury CID, said: "To use such a grotesque level of violence against anyone is inexplicable and we are glad that we have been able to get justice for their victim.

"He will be left with the emotional and physical scars of this incident for a long time but he should be able to get some peace of mind that we caught them quickly and put them before the courts.

"Because Reilly, Starrs and Cummins were entirely unknown to the victim, we would have had a much more difficult job to find them if it were not for the helicopter crew filming the incident and directing responding officers on the ground to them."