A judge called three young men who carried out a sadistic homophobic attack in Harrogate 'thugs’. Judge Paul Hoffman handed down an indeterminate sentence to Craig Grant, 20, and Carl Rutherford, 18, ordering a minimum term of four-and-a-half years before eligibility for parole, for stamping on the head of a 42-year-old gay man in Harrogate’s Valley Gardens, leaving him with brain damage. All three had pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to the unnamed gay man on the 8th January 2007. The victim spent two months in hospital.

Hoffman told the defendants: 'You are thugs. There is not an ounce of decency in any of you.’