A BARNSLEY soldier was brutally attacked in the street on the same day as the town honoured its Armed Forces - just hours after getting home from the Falkland Islands.
The savage and unprovoked attack on the 28-year-old in a terraced street in the town centre has left witnesses shaken and horrified.
The corporal, who has served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, was left with concussion, a broken nose, black eyes and cuts and bruises all over his face, head and neck with some shoulder and pelvic injuries after being repeatedly kicked and stamped on.
He was jumped on from behind at around midnight last Saturday, so has no idea about the identity of the attackers.
In an ironic twist, it was just hours after members of the public had applauded soldiers who paraded outside the Barnsley Town Hall as part of the Armed Forces Day celebrations.
The soldier, who has served 10 years in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, had got back to Barnsley that day after a 30-hour journey home from the Falkland Islands.
His distraught mum, who did not want to be named, said: "All soldiers risk their lives, they put their lives on the line for their colleagues and for their country and we, their family, accept that.
"But we do not accept or expect for a soldier to be attacked by a gang of thugs outside their own home for no reason whatsoever.
"How can it be that in the morning Barnsley is honouring our forces and telling them we are proud of what they do and then hours later a soldier is treated in this way?"
A police spokesman said: "One man was detained on suspicion of assault."
