Three young men from Nice have been sent to jail for an unprovoked attack in Larvotto last summer. The incident took place at around 3 am on the morning of August 7, Monaco’s Criminal Court was told. The victim had stopped to talk to two girls close to Sass Cafe, when the three young men attacked him.

The two brothers and a cousin, aged between 19 and 25, told the court they had acted in self-defence, although security cameras told a different story.

The outbreak of violence provoked the prosecutor to call for prison sentences. “All this because you are blaming this person for speaking English and then going on to French. And what a rampage, the images are extremely shocking … it’s unacceptable.”

The lawyer defending the two brothers asked for clemency, saying that the elder would lose his job in Monaco if sentenced to a jail term while his younger brother acted out of ‘“immaturity.”

The elder brother was given the opportunity to serve his two-month sentence at the weekends, while his younger brother was given eight days and the cousin ten.