There in body but not in spirit, they watched him lie lifeless for 15 torturous months
20.04.2024 - 15:58
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
As Shane Maloney lay in his hospital bed, tears began rolling down his face. His devastated family visited him week after week as he lay lifeless, a severe brain injury reducing him to a shell of his former self.
A man just aged 28 when he died, who enjoyed spending time with his family including his young niece and nephew. A life wasted and cut tragically short, after he was attacked by a drink and drug-fuelled thug.
Mr Maloney was left unable to walk or speak, effectively paralysed after being hit over the head with a champagne bottle by Dean Hughes. The pair had never met prior to the brutal attack, but a row over a mobile phone descended into a fight.
READ MORE: Murderer hit man over the head with champagne bottle then tried to blame it on his own girlfriend
Mr Maloney became angry with Hughes after he refused to give back a mobile phone which had been lent to him by his girlfriend, and was initially the aggressor, Manchester Crown Court heard. But Hughes' response was wholly disproportionate and had catastrophic consequences.
Mr Maloney was never the same. He died 15 months later after contracting an infection. For his family, that period in time was 'torture'. The attack, committed at a house on Wigan Road in Leigh, robbed them of the Shane they knew and loved.
"For me, Shane died on November 8, 2019, certainly Shane as we knew him," his aunt Dawn Steele said in a statement read on her behalf at Hughes' sentencing hearing.
"After being told he wouldn't survive the night at Salford Royal Hospital, to days, weeks and months and visits, I can't explain the heartbreak and difficult times, of hoping every day for some glimmer of hope that Shane would recover.
"Dean Hughes took away every memory I had of Shane as he