Killer torches bloodstained clothes after kicking neighbour to death

Caught torching his clothes on a friend’s barbecue, this was the scene as a ‘dangerous’ thug was arrested while trying to destroy evidence after killing a man with a brutal kick to the head.

Martin Montgomery launched the ‘unprovoked assault’ on Nigel Mazs because he was angry at him smoking drugs in a communal stairwell outside his flat.

Mr Mazs, a 59-year-old father who fell backwards and cracked his head on concrete, died nine days later in hospital after medics desperately fought to save his life.

During a trial, a neuropathologist said the force of the kick, which was at the ‘severe end of the spectrum’, and the further damage from the fall resulted in Mr Mazs’ brain ‘physically being squashed’.

Montgomery, 31, is due to be sentenced tomorrow after a jury convicted him of murder following a nine-day trial. He had denied the charge but admitted manslaughter.

Daniel Allen, who was with Mr Mazs in the stairwell, told the court his friend had been picking something up off the floor when he ‘just got booted in the head’, with the blow to his face knocking him out ‘straight away’.

‘At the end of the day he was my mate, he didn’t deserve that,’ he said.

The fatal assault happened at 11am on December 22 last year, as Mr Mazs hung out with friends in the block of flats in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

Montgomery emerged from his flat, furious at the drug use on his doorstep, with witnesses saying he was ‘shouting and swearing’ and telling them ‘there are f****** kids here’. He accused the group of being ‘crackheads’ but they told police they had rolled a ‘spliff’.

As Mr Mazs bent down, the defendant delivered the powerful kick to his nose, causing him to fall backwards and hit his head.

A 30-year-old woman who lived in the block told the trial how he landed on the ground in a ‘starfish position, with his arms and legs wide open’.

She added: ‘You would assume it would sound like a crack but it didn’t – it was more or a hard thud.’

Mr Mazs was put into a sitting position by his two friends while still unconscious and they eventually dragged him away before he had come round, despite blood pouring from his face.

Montgomery continued to ‘taunt and threaten’ his victim, yelling ‘don’t f****** come back’.

Mr Mazs collapsed about an hour later and was taken to James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston where he was found to have a brain haemorrhage.

He was transferred by helicopter to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge where doctors placed him in an induced coma to try and help him recover but he never regained consciousness and died on January 4.

Police arrested Montgomery at a friend’s house in Great Yarmouth nine hours after the attack and found him desperately trying to destroy evidence by burning the clothes he had been wearing on a barbecue.

Bodycam footage showed officers approaching the back yard with white smoke billowing over the fence.

They extinguished the flames as he was arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. As he was led away in handcuffs, his only response was to say: ‘Fair enough.’

During the trial at Norwich Crown Court, Dr Kieron Allinson, a consultant neuropathologist who examined Mr Mazs' brain, said he had suffered a ‘very severe injury’.

He told jurors the injuries were ‘entirely consistent’ with a kick to the face leading to an ‘accelerated impact fall’ resulting in ‘severe life-threatening intracranial injuries’.

Dr Allinson said it suggested that the kick was delivered at force ‘at the severe end of the spectrum’, causing bleeding in three different compartments of the brain, and bruising.

There was a ‘mass of blood underneath the skull’ which resulted in Mr Mazs' brain ‘physically being squashed’, leading to parts of it being starved of oxygen.

Montgomery showed no emotion as the guilty verdict was read out in Norwich Crown Court on Friday, just 90 minutes after the jury retired to consider their decision.

But there were gasps and sobs from Mr Mazs’s family, who had sat in the public gallery throughout the trial.

Relatives described his death as ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘traumatic’ in a statement.

They added: ‘Dad was loved by so many people, he made a positive impact in everyone’s life with his infectious laugh. He was an amazing father, grandfather and brother.’

Detective Inspector Alix Wright of Norfolk Police said: ‘I would like to offer my sympathy to the family of Nigel after his life was so swiftly and brutally taken from him.

‘This was an unprovoked assault and the way that Montgomery showed no concern for his victim, a man he did not know, and continued to taunt and threaten him even after he had suffered such a catastrophic injury, shows he is a dangerous individual who should be off the streets.’