A MAN has been jailed for homophobic attacks on two teenagers - with one of his victims saying: "I thought he was going to kill me."

Damien Vick told police "nothing has occurred” shortly after he had throttled one of the youths in York, said Victoria Hajba-Ward, prosecuting.

The 39-year-old had driven his thumbs painfully into the older victim’s eyes, stopping him from seeing, then started choking him with his hands around the youth’s throat.

As Vick throttled him, the youth’s head was rocking backwards, hitting a wall behind him. At one point Vick hit him in the face.

“I thought he was going to kill me,” the victim later told police.

“His face was really close to me. I could see the look in his eyes.

“He looked like he liked what he was doing and didn’t care.”

After police helped the teenager into a van away from Vick, the youth fainted from the pain and the effects of what he had been through, said Ms Hajba-Ward.

During the prolonged incident, Vick shouted at and insulted both the youth and a younger teenager with homophobic abuse, the court heard.

He manhandled objects near the younger victim and one of them fell on his head. The boy later told police he was terrified by the way Vick had behaved towards him.

Both teenagers were described as being LGBT, York Crown Court heard.

“These are vulnerable people because of their personal circumstances,” Judge Simon Hickey said.

Ms Hajba-Ward said that Vick reacted so violently to being arrested police had to taser him twice and he had spat on two of them.

The judge called the spitting a “life-threatening” form of assault because it was during the Covid pandemic.

Vick was jailed for three years and banned from any contact with either of the teenagers for 15 years under a restraining order.

Vick, from York, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm to the older teenager, assaulting the younger teen, criminal damage, two charges of assaulting emergency workers, and resisting police.

For Vick, Anna Bond said he suffered from depression, anxiety and psychosis and had a personality disorder.

He had previous violence convictions, but had led a law-abiding life while he was on anti-psychosis medication. The teenagers had been attacked when he was not taking the medication, she said. But the judge rejected her assertion the offences were linked to Vick’s mental health.

He told Vick: “You decided quite deliberately to go and purchase some whisky and you were in drink when this occurred.”

Ms Bond said Vick was remorseful for his actions and that the older teenager had suffered bruises and nothing more serious and the younger teenager had not needed medical treatment.