A thug was arrested while trying to destroy evidence after killing a man with a brutal kick to the head.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Martin Montgomery launched the ‘unprovoked assault’ on Nigel Mazs because he was angry at him smoking drugs in a communal stairwell outside his flat.

Mr Mazs, a 59-year-old father who fell backwards and cracked his head on concrete, died nine days later in hospital after medics desperately fought to save his life.

COURT HEARD

During a trial, a neuropathologist said the force of the kick, which was at the ‘severe end of the spectrum’, and the further damage from the fall resulted in Mr Mazs’ brain ‘physically being squashed’.

Montgomery, 31, is due to be sentenced Tuesday after a jury convicted him of murder following a nine-day trial. He had denied the charge but admitted manslaughter.

Daniel Allen, who was with Mr Mazs in the stairwell, told the court his friend had been picking something up off the floor when he ‘just got booted in the head’, with the blow to his face knocking him out ‘straight away’.

‘At the end of the day he was my mate, he didn’t deserve that,’ he said.

The fatal assault happened at 11am on December 22 last year, as Mr Mazs hung out with friends in the block of flats in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

Montgomery emerged from his flat, furious at the drug use on his doorstep, with witnesses saying he was ‘shouting and swearing’ and telling them ‘there are f****** kids here’. He accused the group of being ‘crackheads’ but they told police they had rolled a ‘spliff’.

As Mr Mazs bent down, the defendant delivered the powerful kick to his nose, causing him to fall backwards and hit his head.