Teenagers sentenced for killing 80-year-old dog walker

TWO teenagers have been sentenced for killing an 80-year-old dog walker who was racially abused, punched, kicked and slapped in the face with a shoe while on his knees in a brutal park attack.

- SOPHIE ROBINSON and STEPHANIE WAREHAM

A 15-year-old boy was ordered to serve seven years’ detention and a 13-year-old girl was handed a three-year youth rehabilitation order by a High Court judge at Leicester Crown Court for the manslaughter of Bhim Kohli, who suffered a broken neck and fractured ribs just yards from his home.

The girl had filmed a series of video clips in which Mr Kohli was slapped with the shoe by the masked boy and another where the 80-year-old lay motionless on the ground, the court previously heard.

Mr Justice Turner said it had been a “cowardly and violent attack” on an elderly man who did “nothing to deserve” what happened to him.

A six-week trial heard that Mr Kohli called out for help while walking his dog Rocky when he was assaulted by the balaclava-clad boy while the girl laughed and filmed parts of the attack on her phone in Franklin Park, Braunstone Town, near Leicester, on September 1 last year.

Both children denied their part in the grandfather's death but were convicted of manslaughter by a jury at the same court in April, while the boy was cleared of Mr Kohli’s murder.

Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu KC told the sentencing hearing yesterday that there was “deliberate humiliation” of Mr Kohli during the attack that came against a backdrop of “bullying and antagonising” of the pensioner by other local youths that the boy must have been aware of.

Mr Kohli’s children found him lying on the ground in agony when he told his daughter that he had been called a “P***” during the attack.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Kohli’s daughter Susan Kohli told the packed courtroom yesterday: “He was in so much pain, he was screaming out. It was horrendous and we have never seen him like this.