A thug who viciously attacked another man leaving him with serious facial injuries has been jailed for eight years.

Michaela Whiting invited Thomas Doherty to her home for drinks after a chance meeting in the street.

But while there he was suddenly assaulted by Miss Whiting’s partner, Frankie Lester.

Mr Doherty said after Miss Whiting invited him to the flat in Gillingham on March 21 he went to an off-licence and bought alcohol.

He was about to leave later, he said, when the 35-year-old became violent.

“It was bang, bang, bang into the face,” he told a jury at Maidstone Crown Court last month. “He kicked the hell out of me.

“He kicked me in the body, face and head 15 to 17 times.”

Mr Doherty claimed Lester went through his pockets and took more than £200.

Lester denied the attack and tried to blame another man present in the flat.

But Mr Doherty said: “I am 100% satisfied it was Frankie Lester doing those things.

“I said: ‘Please stop. Don’t do this.’ I was very dizzy.

“I tried to run. I couldn’t really. I was so dizzy from the beating. All I remember is an ambulance coming and taking me to hospital.”

Mr Doherty had surgery on his fractured eye socket, cheekbone and jaw.

He said of Miss Whiting and Lester: “She set me up and he did the jump. It’s a conspiracy.”

Lester, of Saunders Street, Gillingham, denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent, but was convicted.

He also denied robbery and was acquitted of that charge.

Miss Whiting, 35, of the same address, denied the same charges and was acquitted by direction of the recorder, Brian Argyle.

He said of Lester, who was locked up for 45 months in 2002 for robbery: “He caused really serious injury to the head.”