THIS is the sickening moment two thugs from a teenage 'happy-slapping' gang delivered their killer blows on a pensioner — in front of his three-year-old granddaughter.
Leon Elcock, 15 at the time, and Hamza Lyzai, then 14, ambushed frail pensioner Ekram Haque as he left evening prayers at a mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.
The brutes smashed 67-year-old Mr Haque to the ground — the impact of his head hitting the pavement leaving him with fatal brain damage.
CCTV pictures released by cops show little Mariam walking with the grandfather she called 'Papa'.
Amid her crying screams, she attempts to comfort him as he lies on the floor.
Four days earlier Elcock and a pal had stormed the house of a married couple aged 78 and 72 to beat them up.
And a minute before leaving gentle Mr Haque for dead, the trio had also felled two other worshippers outside the mosque in Tooting, South London, rendering one unconscious in hospital.
Killed ... gentle grandad Ekram HaqueJudge Martin Stephens at the Old Bailey in London today lifted a legal ban on naming the juveniles — now aged 16 and 15.
Elcock and Lyzai — who styled themselves 'The Lane Gang' after Tooting's Church Lane where they lived — admitted manslaughter and charges of assault.
'Fun'
Judge Stephens caged Elcock in a detention centre for four-and-half years and Lyzai for three-and-a-half years — though they are likely to be out next year on licence having already spent 325 days on remand.
A youth aged 15 who joined-in the attack on the old couple in their home was given six months detention after admitting assault.
The judge told them: "You three committed a series of very serious cowardly and deeply unpleasant offences against elderly and vulnerable men and women.
"Other offences were filmed as part of what you saw as fun."
He said to Elcock and Lyzai: "The blows launched on this gentleman led directly to his death. As a result of your so-called bit of fun, he was deprived of a full and contented life and his family of a devoted and inspiring and beloved grandfather and father who played a large part in the daily care of his granddaughter."
Mariam's father legal adviser Arfan Haque, 35, of Letchworth, Herts, today branded the sentences "a joke" and added: "They should have been locked away for longer."
Jailed ... Leon Elcock and Hamza LyzaiIn an impact statement read out at the Old Bailey, he said: "I was devastated that the attack happened right outside my father's place of worship.
"My grandfather was the primary carer for Mariam as I am a single father. After the attack Mariam was very traumatised.
"She is frightened of hoods and wary of seeing boys in the street. She regularly has nightmares. I had to explain to her they were only dreams.
"She says 'I miss my papa', they had a special relationship. She still talks about my father and the attack that night.
"It is a dreadful loss. My father was a very loving individual, he was a very special man, a peaceful man.
"I hope the boys who did this realise the gravity of what they have done."
The court heard mobile phone footage recovered from one gang member's house revealed the hoodies launching six violent slap-attacks before which they brazenly announced: "Lane Gang Productions."
Devastated ... son Arfan HaqueOne shown to the court was on a London bus driver sitting in his cab reading a paper who was approached with the trigger phrase: "Have you got the time?"
However, none of the attacks for which they were sentenced were recorded on their phones.
The judge heard the elderly couple, Jushbhai and Jasumati Patel, asked several youths sitting on their garden wall to go away, but Elcock and his mate rushed inside their house and battered them.
Mr Patel was left with a heel mark in his chest.
Four days later Elcock and Lyzai targeted the two men Ataa-il Hasan Mir and Imdad Bukari standing outside the mosque.
They had earlier been to Notting Hill Carnival, and were heard saying before the assaults it was "fighting time" and they were going to "bang someone".
They ran off laughing seconds before striking Calcutta-born Mr Haque, a retired warden in a disabled home, on August 31 last year. His life support machine was switched off a week later.
That night Lyzai injured a finger climbing a wall and went to St George's Hospital in Tooting, where it was amputated.
Three fellow gang members went to see their friend, but when a female nurse denied them admission a 12-year-old boy threatened to stab her.
Barrister Michael Wood, for Elcock — suspended from school after a violent attack on a teacher — said the defendant had written a note to the Haque family expressing remorse.
Nigel Lambert, for Lyzai, said his client had become involved in "a few short moments of madness".
Oliver Blunt, representing the third gang member who could not be named, added: "They were young bored listless youths who sought entertainment in this extremely unpleasant and distorted fashion."
Read more:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3068885/Happy-slap-pair-jailed-for-8yrs.html#ixzz0upm73R3W
