Featured Image Credit: Wales News Service
Topics: UK News, World News, Crime
Joe Harker
A man has been sentenced to seven years behind bars after a British dad-of-three was killed on a stag do in Prague.
31-year-old David ‘Dai’ Richards had been in the Czech capital last September when he and his friends met another group of tourists in the popular European city.
Police said an argument broke out between the two groups and Richards was struck in the head with a glass bottle. He was then rushed to hospital.
His family had received a call from one of his friends to tell them what had happened and they flew to Prague in the hope that he would regain consciousness, but the decision was made to switch off his life support.
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A spokesperson for the police explained: "At first, everything was calm and the tourists were chatting normally.
"Then there was a rift between them and one of them hit the other in the head with a vodka bottle. The blow was so strong that the injured person immediately fell to the ground and unfortunately died in hospital."
Police said detectives had launched a search for the man who struck Richards and acted quickly because they knew a tourist might leave Prague soon.
Officers arrested a 26-year-old man outside his hotel in Prague on charges of grievous bodily harm and disorderly conduct.
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German man Joel Hoppe, now 27, pleaded guilty to the charges against him and was sentenced to seven years in prison as he said he acted in a fit of rage while being under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
He has also been ordered to pay 4.7 million crowns (£158,758) in damages to Richards' family, and will be banned from the Czech Republic for 10 years.
Hoppe is reported to have told the court: "Not a day goes by that I don't think about the late David and his children. I will accept whatever sentence you give me."
Judge Daniella Sarah Sotolářová took into account the man's show of remorse and said she believed Hoppe 'did not want to cause the death of the victim' when passing his sentence.
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Richards' family said the South Wales dad was an 'absolutely amazing father, partner, son, brother, and friend' who was the 'glue of the family'.
Speaking on the strike with the glass bottle that killed him, Richards' family said: "It wasn't a fight like what I think some people are thinking - it was a blind attack.
"From the attack he actually passed away from blunt force trauma. David was talking to locals in the street when he took a blow to the back of the head."
Richards' post-mortem examination provisionally gave his cause of death as brain trauma, swelling, and haemorrhaging.
He had three children with his partner Jola Simms, Aurora, four, Bear, two, and one-year-old Vienna.