Two violent teenage thugs ambushed clubbers as they made their way home, leaving one man with glass embedded in his neck and another with a head wound so severe his bone was showing.

The pair, both 16, who cannot be named for legal reasons, carried out two violent robberies in the Kingsland Passage area before assaulting a third man.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard how they refused to name their accomplices.

The first victim, Christopher Moore, was walking home alone last September 14 when a youth approached him from a group of ‘about eight others’ asking: “Mate, have you got a fag?”

As he turned to walk away the youth said: “Don’t you turn your back to me” before he was struck from behind on his jaw.

Mr Moore was kicked to the ground and hit repeatedly with a glass bottle so hard the glass embedded in his neck, before the group ran off with his Hermes watch, wallet and bank cards.

The second victim, Rob Clements, was on his way home when he was struck on the back of his head.

The next thing he remembers is being in the back of an ambulance covered in blood after the muggers took his £400 mobile phone and wallet containing bank cards and £300.

Later that later that night Andrew Barker was looking for the Visions nightclub when he and his friend were tripped up and attacked with bottles by a group of teenagers. His head wound was so severe that it cut him down to the bone.

The yobs from Hackney were identified from CCTV which captured one of them stealing a wallet from a restaurant earlier in the night before attacking Mr Clements.

Sentencing them to custody in youth offenders’ institutions, Judge John Lafferty said: “Violence was used far in excess of what was necessary to rob these two men.”

One defendant was handed three concurrent 12 month detention and training orders, while the other received three 13 month sentences for each offence. He also admitted stealing a moped, but received no additional penalties. Both will have to serve at least half their sentences.