A thug pulled a 'victory pose' after killing an innocent man - then lied to a call operator claiming he found him.
Alin Zaharia, 27, fatally punched 40-year-old Gary Clark on a street in Grays, Essex on November 30 2020.
He then called 999 and lied to the call operator claiming he had found Gary lying in the street.
EssexLive reported the thug came across Gary, who had previously been drinking outside his local shops in the road that evening, when out with a group of friends.
Basildon Crown Court heard Gary was minding his own business when Alin's group arrived and there were words exchanged between his friend and a friend of Gary's.
After the matter was seemingly resolved, Alin could be seen on CCTV conversing with someone inside a white car on the road, before collapsing on the ground and laughing.
Following this, Gary was standing in the middle of the road while the other men rowed, and Alin approached him and punched him in the face, despite Gary posing no threat to him.
Gary fell back and hit his head on the ground and ended up suffering a skull fracture and later a severe brain injury and died.
Alin was later arrested on suspicion of murder, and the charge was later changed to manslaughter.
He denied the offence and stood trial at Basildon Crown Court, but a jury found him guilty. He was sentenced at the same court today August 4.
Judge Samantha Leigh said that the footage of Alin with the white car and him collapsing on the floor laughing were "highly suspicious".
And she suspected that Alin may have consumed some form of drugs - although this has never been proven and did not form part of the criminal charges.
She said: "This is a tragic case of a one-punch manslaughter. Gary Clark was 40 years old at the time of his death, a son who was deeply loved.
"On November 30, 2020, in the early evening until midnight, he was sat outside his local shops as he would often do, sipping a can of drink.
"He was clearly a loner who would mind his own business. He was a quiet person and didn't cause any difficulty at all.
The judge continued: "Without warning you step into him and you punch him in the face. You maintained to the jury that you pushed Mr Clark.
"That has rightly been rejected. You said that he was aggressive and swearing at you just before your hitting.
"I find it as fact that Mr Clark was not doing any of those things whatsoever.
"You return to your group behind you with your arms out as in some form of victory gesture.
"You did call 999 and you lied to the operator and said you didn't know what happened to the man and you came across the man in the road."
Mitigating, Ashity Ollennu said that Alin now accepted the verdict of the jury, and that he had initially come from Romania to the UK to "better his life" and that his actions on the evening were "rash".
He said: "He stayed at the scene and called the ambulance, tried to help and he showed a degree of remorse, he said 'what have we done'. He showed that he was greatly affected by it.
"He will have this over his head for the rest of his life this rash action that has caused someone to die.
"He will have that with him for the rest of his life. He's very sorry for the actions he took on that day.
"He will make amends for the rest of his life by coming back and being the kind of person that, until that event, he is and was."
Judge Leigh jailed Alin, who struggled to suppress tears in the dock, for five-and-a-half years for manslaughter.
