A drunk Ipswich teenager who left a taxi driver fighting for his life after repeatedly kicking him during a robbery has been locked up for 50 months.

Sentencing 19-year-old Jack Powell, Recorder Graham Huston said he had “taken complete leave of his senses” after getting angry at the cost of his taxi fare.

“This was a particularly vicious and nasty attack by you in drink,” said the judge.

He said the taxi driver, who suffered serious injuries including a fractured skull and fractures to his face, had been left fighting for his life in hospital following the attack in the early hours of November 7 last year.

“What happened has had an enormous physical and mental impact on his life and these effects are likely to last for a long time,” said the judge.

Powell, 19, of Lattice Avenue, pleaded guilty to robbery and an offence of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to 50 months in a young offenders’ institution.

Police were called in the early hours of Sunday, November 7, by a member of the public who reported that a man had been attacked in Tower Mill Road.

Powell was seen to drag a man out of the driver’s side of a car and when the member of the public went to investigate Powell threw a mobile phone at him and made off in the direction of Bramford Road.

When police officers arrived they found the victim face down on the side of the road with a badly swollen face and bleeding from his injuries.

Powell was arrested shortly afterwards and admitted kicking the 40-year-old taxi driver saying: “This is 100% my fault. I deserve everything I get.”

As a result of the attack the victim suffered a fractured skull, swelling to his brain and facial fractures which required surgery to insert metal plates and screws.

He spent almost a month in Addenbrooke’s hospital where he was unconscious for a week.

In a statement read to the court, the victim said Powell had left for him for dead and what happened would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Jamie Sawyer, for Powell, said his client had been drunk on the night in question and was now “extremely remorseful”.

After the sentencing hearing on Thursday, Det Insp Damian Richer said: “This was a truly shocking display of violence and but for the intervention of a member of the public the outcome could have been worse than it already was."