AN attacker who left his victims for dead in a mindless orgy of violence has been jailed for nine years.

Patrick Baldwin stamped on two innocent men on the floor of a pizza shop on a night when he was “looking for trouble”, a court heard.

The 25-year-old was told he could have killed the victims, one of whom thought the floor of the takeaway would be “the last thing he’d see”.

Judge Sean Morris told Baldwin: “By the time you left that pizza place, two decent harmless individuals were lying on the floor unconscious.

“You left them for dead, and they could have died.

“This was a sustained and repeated attack. Other people had to witness this barbarity.”

Baldwin was “in a mood for revenge” that night, the judge told Teesside Crown Court.

He had been thrown out of the Garrick pub on Yarm Lane, Stockton for punching one of the victims without reason or warning.

Baldwin attacked him and his friend in Gino’s pizza shop less than an hour later, at about 3am.

He tricked his way into the pizzeria, which was closing, and launched the assault with two other men, who have not been identified.

The two victims were standing at the counter when the three knocked them to the floor with a flurry of blows.

They carried on punching, kicking and stamping on the defenceless victims on April 10 last year, said prosecutor Harry Hadfield.

A security officer called police fearing someone might be killed.

The two victims, who said they did not want trouble and asked to be left alone, were knocked out by the gang.

One suffered a broken jaw and only remembered waking up in immense pain on a hospital trolley. He could not eat solid food and had cuts, bruises and a bite mark.

The other injured man, who had been hit in the pub, said he thought he would die, since had nightmares about the violence and was told he might have post traumatic stress.

The men told of trouble sleeping and anxiety about going out.

Baldwin handed himself in after a media appeal including CCTV images of the three attackers. The other two still have not been caught.

Baldwin, of St Paul’s Road, Thornaby, admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent, actual bodily harm assault and common assault.

The scaffolder was just over a year out of a seven-year jail term in 2012 for stabbing a man’s arm and thigh at a family barbecue.

Keith Jones, defending, said the dad-of-two did not know the other two assailants before the night of the assaults, when he got involved in an argument in the pub then the fracas at the pizza shop.

He said Baldwin wanted to apologise to the victims and get help with anger management, had brought a bag to court and said goodbye to family members.

He said the victims were lucky not to have died or ended up paraplegic from a brain bleed.

Jailing Baldwin for nine years, he warned: “If you commit another crime of violence, and I’m around for a long time, you will risk going to prison for life. Take him down.”