AN IRISH backpacker has been jailed for up to a year in jail following a drunken attack on a bouncer in Sydney city centre.
Diarmaid Dooley (28) will serve a minimum of eight months in jail for the assault at popular Irish bar Scruffy Murphys on November 10 last year.
Mr Dooley was sentenced after a court viewed security footage which showed Mr Dooley punching the bouncer in the face and kneeing him in the stomach.
The 28-year-old had pleaded guilty to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, but told the court he had been drunk and had no memory of the incident.
His lawyer told an Australian television channel that his client was “devastated” by the sentence.
He said: “It was not an unprovoked ‘king hit’ on an innocent person, but added that the sentence was “not a surprise given the current situation”.
Unexpected one-punch assaults to the head, commonly called “king hits”, have killed more than 90 people in Australia since 2000, with alcohol being a factor in three-quarters of these deaths.
Mr Dooley will return to court next month to appeal his sentence.
