Victim lucky to be alive.

A BOXER and a DJ have been jailed after a night of vicious violence in Honiton left a man permanently disabled.

Aaron Seldon, 20, was told it was lucky he hadn’t killed victim Wayne Kelly when sentenced to four years and three months in prison at Exeter Crown Court last Thursday.

Champion boxer Seldon’s pal, Dean Saunders, 26, was handed a two year term for joining him in an unprovoked attack on John Garland, who had tried to protect injured friend Mr Kelly.

The court heard a flurry of text messages sent between the offenders after the violence revealed they were convinced Mr Kelly was dead and Mr Garland was on a life support machine.

Judge Graham Cottle told Seldon: “It is pure fortune that you do not stand here convicted at the very least of manslaughter.

“If violence wasn’t the only item on your agenda that night, it certainly featured high up on the list.”

Mr Kelly was left fighting for his life. Surgeons removed the front quarter of his skull to operate on blood clots on his brain.

Witnesses described how they heard an “almighty crack” as his head hit the ground after he was punched by Seldon.

Mr Garland suffered a broken jaw and also needed surgery after Seldon floored him with a single blow and Saunders joined in the attack as he lay on the ground.

The High Street violence followed earlier unprovoked violence in the Pit Club that saw Seldon repeatedly punch reveller Scott Morgan in the head before being thrown-out by bouncers.

A third man, Shaun Bond, 20, was given a nine month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for affray, after joining Seldon in targeting Mr Morgan outside the venue a short time later.

Passing sentence, Judge Cottle told the three Exeter men: “All of you that night, to a greater or lesser extent, were involved in a depressingly familiar story of unprovoked and senseless violence, fuelled by the excessive consumption of alcohol.

“On this occasion it ends with three people injured, two very seriously, one who might have died on the High Street.”

He said of events that transpired in the High Street: “I’m quite satisfied you, Seldon, were spoiling for further violence.”

The three men said they had gone to Honiton to watch Saunders DJ at the Pit Club before the incidents took place in the early hours of Saturday, March 21, last year.