A 34-year-old man has been found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment following the death of a man a year after he was attacked.
Gary Playle, 45, was found opposite a pub in Bedford in January 2006. He died in February 2007 having never regained consciousness, Luton Crown Court heard.
Ronnie Cramb-Todd, of Kempster Close, Bedford, was found guilty by a jury unanimously at Luton Crown Court.
Judge John Bevan passed a minimum jail term of 15 years on Cramb-Todd.
The court had previously heard medical experts describe how Mr Playle was found with injuries significant with having come "from stamping, kicking, falling from a significant height or being involved in a road traffic accident".
'Pride dented'
Jurors had heard how on 20 January 2006, Mr Playle, his partner Susan Williams and a mutual friend had got talking to the defendant in a pub before the group went to a nearby house to smoke cannabis.
Miss Williams told the jury how she was standing in the house talking to Cramb-Todd when he grabbed her.
The jury heard how Mr Playle witnessed it and became angry and threw him out of the house.
The prosecution said Cramb-Todd then attacked Mr Playle in the street outside because he was angry that Mr Playle had ejected him from the house.
As a result Mr Playle suffered massive head injuries which left him in a coma.
Sentencing Cramb-Todd, Judge Bevan told him: "You were slighted by what happened in the house - your pride was dented."
Kicking a man when he was down was bad enough and was the act of a coward, the judge said.
To stamp on a man's head was "worse still," he added.
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