Vandal street gang killed father

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A boy pleaded to be allowed "one last cuddle" with his father who was fatally injured in an attack when he tried to stop gangs terrorising his street.

Cardiff Crown Court heard Paul Barnes, 30, from Tremorfa in the city was left in a coma after the attack in July.

His son Kieran, 11, spent 12 days at his bedside and stayed with him when doctors switched off the life machine.

Robert Chambers, 17 and from Leckwith, admitted manslaughter and was given two-and-a-half years' detention.

The court head Chambers knocked Mr Barnes out with a single punch in July after the businessman confronted youths when his car window was smashed by gangs involved in street fighting.

Mr Barnes had got a 14-year-old he believed responsible for the car vandalism in a headlock when he was attacked.

Prosecuting, Martin Kelly said: "Police had received a number of calls saying groups of up to 20 were fighting in the streets.

"His reaction when he was told his father was gone was simply to ask if he could get into bed with his dad for one last cuddle before the machines turned off Victim's family statement

"Rival gangs were throwing stones at cars. The 14-year-old was with a group of 30 other youths.

A nearby CCTV camera picked up the attack on Mr Barnes with a young voice shouting "Fight him Rob", the court heard

Witnesses described how 6ft tall Chambers then punched 5ft 1ins tall Mr Barnes. He fell to the pavement, his head hitting with "a hollow noise"

The court heard Chambers shouted: "Get up and have some more. Get up you pussy. I knocked him clean out."

Mr Barnes, who ran an aquarium business, was taken unconscious to University Hospital of Wales. He was put on a life support machine where his family kept a permanent vigil.

A family statement to the court described how Kieran sat with his father and was "an inspiration" to them.

"We are a Christian family and we were all praying for his survival," the statement said.

"And here was an 11-year-old boy who relied hugely on his dad.

Flowers laid in tribute outside Mr Barnes' house

"His reaction when he was told his father was gone was simply to ask if he could get into bed with his dad for one last cuddle before the machines turned off."

Sentencing Chambers for "gratuitous violence", Judge John Griffith Williams said: "Your victim was a thoroughly decent man. Above all he was a devoted father to his son.

"You could have left the scene. But you delivered a forceful blow to a man who was no threat to you at all."

Outside court, Kieran's mother Zo Osalinski said: "How can I tell him this man only got two-and-a-half years for taking his dad?"

Dan Barnes, the victim's brother, said they were "struggling to comprehend how a culture in which gangs roam the streets making peoples' lives a misery has been allowed to develop and is apparently tolerated".

His brother's formal complaints about these groups making life in Tremorfa intolerable had "made no difference", he added.

"Something is badly wrong with the way that we treat and guide our young people," he said.