A witness to an alleged brutal bashing in Civic has told the court he feared the victim was dead, and has spoken of the "traumatic experience" of watching him repeatedly hit with a baseball bat.
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A friend of the alleged victim - who was left in a coma and required roughly 30 stitches - gave evidence in the trial of Srbko Borovina and Petar Dimic, both aged 29, on Tuesday.
The pair are on trial accused of hitting of a man in the back of his head repeatedly with a baseball bat outside the Tongue and Groove bar in Civic in January 2011. They have pleaded not guilty.
The complainant claims he did not know his attackers, and had done nothing to provoke the attack.
That is contested by the defence team - barristers Jack Pappas and Anthony Hopkins - who say the alleged victim and a friend were out for revenge against the accused men, after a fight earlier that night left a third friend with a broken jaw and loose teeth.
The defence lawyers claim the alleged victim and his friend made a series of phone calls to organise a revenge hit as they made their way back to Civic from Calvary Hospital.
The alleged victim's friend gave evidence during the trial on Tuesday.
He said they parked their car near Tongue and Groove, saw a group of men, and then heard yelling.
He said a group of four to five men approached him and the alleged victim, surrounding them.
He told the court he slipped between them and ran, leaving the complainant behind.
He turned back and saw the men attacking his friend. One of the men had a baseball bat, and was striking his friend repeatedly in the head while he was on the ground.
The man told the court he found police, and returned to the scene to see his friend on the ground with the men still assaulting him.
"He was just lying there, I wasn't sure if he was unconscious or dead," the witness said.
In cross-examination by the defence, the friend was quizzed over calls made from his phone to a number listed as "Slim".
The defence suggested he had called "Slim" on his way back to Civic from the hospital.
Mr Pappas suggested to the witness that he organised a revenge attack, and that a group of men had pulled up in a white ute armed with baseball bats to "fix up" the accused.
But Mr Pappas said the revenge attack had gotten out of hand.
He accused the witness of lying to the court.
"You are fabricating your evidence. You're making it up," Mr Pappas said.
The trial continues.
