TWO friends who attacked a man they wrongly blamed for stealing money were branded cowards as they were each jailed for more than two years yesterday.

Jason McNaney and Reece Brown beat and kicked their victim so badly he ended in intensive care in an induced coma, Teesside Crown Court was told.

The man was found slumped in his blood-soaked home in Easington, County Durham, by his sister, and when his mother saw him she did not recognise him.

At one point, he stopped breathing, and doctors had to perform a tracheotomy, he then suffered pneumonia and suffered further complications.

Rod Hunt, for McNaney, said he did not anticipate the consequences - caused by the victim breathing and swallowing blood - when the beating started.

"It is quite clear the loss of his money led to the loss of his temper," said Mr Hunt. "He had no idea of the potential of what could happen

"He is bitterly sorry for what happened, and realises how serious it could have been. It has shocked him to the core. He deeply regrets what he did."

Jane Waugh, for Brown, said he hoped to train to be a physical instructor when released, and added: "He could never have foreseen that level of injury."

Brown, of Hopper Street, was jailed for two-and-a-half years, and McNaney, of Antony Street, both Easington, got two years and four months after they admitted grievous bodily harm.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told them: "This was a sustained and unprovoked attack - a misplaced act of violence because he had done no harm.

"It was in every sense a cowardly attack because it needed two of you to go and see to him, and it continued when he was on the ground and injured."