A man asked to be let off his curfew - to stage a fundraiser on behalf of his brother left for dead in a nasty street attack.
Carl Johnson suffered a fractured skull and bleeding to his brain after being set upon in Rochdale last month.
His brother Mark Johnson, of Marsden, is helping organise a fundraising event this weekend.
Today he successfully applied to Kirklees magistrates to have his curfew lifted to cover the open mic evening on Saturday.
He told them: “I’ve organised the event from start to finish after the attack on my little brother in Rochdale town centre.
“It was a completely unprovoked and sustained attack and very well-publicised in the Huddersfield Examiner and Manchester Evening News.”
The music event is being held at Austerlands Cricket Club in Oldham to help Carl as well as the mental health charity Mind and the LGBT Foundation.
Carl, 25, spent five days in hospital following the unprovoked attack on August 13 following the Rochdale Feel Good Festival.
He was making his way home when he was set upon by a group who knocked him to the floor before punching and kicking him as he lay on the ground.
Carl was found badly injured by paramedics and taken to Royal Oldham Hospital, before being moved to a specialist brain injury unit at Salford Royal Hospital.
His brother organised a fundraiser but asked for his curfew hours to be altered to allow him to help set up and tidy up after the event.
He was handed the eight week electronically monitored curfew in August for an offence of driving whilst disqualified.
The 27-year-old had been banned from the road previously for drink-driving.
The curfew runs between the hours of 8pm and 8am and magistrates were asked to remove this for Friday night, with the curfew to resume the following Saturday from 8pm.
Johnson, of Sandhill Cottages, explained: “I need to be there from 7pm to get the music set up and stay around afterwards to clean and take balloons down.
“There will be bands on and raffling of football memorabila donated by Paul Scholes.”
Johnson added that his offending happened following his nervous breakdown earlier this year.
He told magistrates: “It’s been very traumatic putting myself back into the world.
“I’ve got to a really good place which has allowed me to organise this event.”
When magistrates agreed to lift his curfew for the evening, he said: “I’m hoping to raise a few thousand and a few hundred people are relying on me, so thank you.”
