A MAN lost the sight in one eye after being beaten up for taking a photo of an illegally parked car with his mobile phone.

John Perozhak was repeatedly punched in his left eye by one of the attackers, who had the phone in his hand at the time.

He described the impact of the first blow to his eye as like “someone crushing a grape”.

The 60-year-old was attacked by two staff from the London Off Licence, which is underneath his Bournemouth town centre flat.

Ugar Bayir, 19, of Willow Road, Tottenham, was jailed for nine years on Friday after a jury convicted him of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent.

His accomplice Firat Kalay, 28, of Argyle Road, Tottenham, was jailed for three years for inflicting grievous bodily harm.

They attacked him at around 6.30pm in September last year. Mr Perozhak had taken a photo of a BMW parked outside the off licence on St Michael’s Road.

Mr Perozhak showed the Daily Echo his victim statement, which describes how he heard kicking and screaming at his door, and came down to face demands that he delete the photograph.

He called the police and was later hit on the back of the head by Kalay. He fell to the floor and was then kicked and struck with a baseball bat.

Bayir then sat on him and repeatedly hit him in the face while holding the mobile phone. According to Mr Perozhak’s statement, Bayir said: “Take some pictures now.”

Mr Perozhak, an Englishman of Ukranian descent, told the Echo: “I thought they were trying to kill me.”

He was left lying bloodied in the street with two fractures to his eye socket and now suffers from headaches, panic attacks and cold sweats.

“I was in agony for six months,” he said. “I didn’t go out apart from the hospital and the doctors.”

He has a fake plastic lens that covers the front of his eye, like a large contact lens.

When it is removed, his damaged eye ball is just white, overlaid with a film of watery blood.

He said: “I can’t see depth of field now. If I am walking along a pavement it all looks flat but there might be a step. If I go somewhere that I don’t know, I use a cane.”

Mr Perozhak, a former staff troubleshooter for the British Tyre and Rubber company, said he still takes pictures of illegally parked cars.

He added: “I don’t regret doing it, but I regret what’s happened.”

Investigating officer Detective Constable Steve Sutton from Dorset Police said: “This was a particularly nasty incident.”

Mr Perozhak now sleeps in the living room because he wakes up so often from nightmares.

His wife Ludmilla said: “Our whole lives have changed. We were quite social people, now we just go out in the day somewhere quiet in the woods.

“It’s very, very rare we go out in the evening.”

She added: “I was in shock when I saw him after the attack. I was just numb, I couldn’t speak.”