An attacker who brutally bashed a "cowering" man has been jailed, after telling a report author "things got out of control".
On Tuesday, George Dristas was sentenced to three years and 10 months behind bars with a non-parole period of more than two years.
The 54-year-old previously admitted to recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm, along with co-offender Jamie Kinsela, during the 2020 attack.
In ACT Supreme Court sentencing remarks, Justice Louise Taylor said video of the assault showed the victim "cowering and pleading".
Dristas and Kinsela repeatedly kicked the head and body of the victim, as well as stomping on and dragging him, at Latham shops.
"By their conduct, it being in broad daylight and with witnesses around, the offenders revealed to victim their determination to assault him," Justice Taylor said.
"There is no place for members of the community to take the law into their own hands as the co-offenders appear to have done on this occasion."
The judge labelled the brutal bashing a "a brazen attack in company involving gratuitous violence in public".
Justice Taylor said Dristas had told a pre-sentence report author that "things got out of control" and he did not intend for the victim to be so badly injured.
"The offender maintained some justification for the offending citing the theft committed by the victim," she stated.
"He also suggested that he himself had been blamed for the theft and he was motivated by a desire for an admission from the victim."
Agreed facts previously tendered to the court state the victim broke into Kinsela's home in late August 2020 and stole 10 ounces of cannabis and one litre of cannabis-infused vegetable glycerine.
This was captured on CCTV and is said to have spurred the two offenders to track down the victim, which they did on the morning of September 1, 2020.
The victim attempted to hide in the Latham Turkish Food Bar but was violently dragged out of the shop.
He was repeatedly stomped on, struck, yelled at and threatened inside and outside the shop and in view of multiple witnesses, with his shoes also taken.
The two offenders tried to push the victim into their ute, with witnesses telling police Kinsela was holding rope.
"[Dritsas] told [the victim] not to get blood on the car and said that 'the more mess you make, the more we're going to hurt you'," court documents state.
The victim resisted and, with witnesses verbally interjecting during the assault, got away.
"Get out of Canberra," Kinsela yelled at the fleeing victim.
The victim suffered a collapsed lung, two fractured ribs, a fractured ankle, multiple abrasions, bruises and laceration, among other injuries.
He remained in intensive care for four days.
