Melbourne's McDonald's Killer Gets 20 Years for Beating Young Student to Death

In the early hours of October 18, 2014, Kyle Zandipour, a 29-year-old ANZ banker, was sitting outside of the McDonald's on Melbourne's St Kilda Road, eating with a friend, Matthew Bell.

At some point, a young guy approached them asking to borrow Zandipour's mobile. He was Joshua Hardy, a 21-year-old student from Melbourne University. Still drunk from a party and valedictory dinner the night before, Hardy had lost his own phone in a cab.

CCTV, played during Zandipour's trial, shows the sickening attack that happened next. The 29-year-old pushed Hardy down and kicked him repeatedly. He then stomped on the 21-year-old's head, before walking away from the body. The brutal assault caused irreparable brain damage, and Hardy died in hospital less than an hour later.

On Tuesday, a Melbourne judge sentenced Zandipour to 20 years in jail for killing Hardy—an Aboriginal student originally from Darwin, who was described a "mentor" to his peers.

"Your actions involved a moment of madness, six seconds of madness to be precise," Justice Karin Emerton told Zandipour in court. "I doubt you properly understand why you attacked Mr Hardy in the way you did. Your conduct was utterly senseless."

During his trial Zandipour told the court he lashed out at Hardy in self defence, in fear the young man might have been on drugs and would attack him. "He came back up so I thought, you know, something's going to happen," Zandipour said during the trial. "So I kicked him to go down and once he was down I, we walked away, quickly moved away so we had some time to leave."

However, Zandipour's friend Bell testified he never felt threatened by the student that night. While a jury failed to come to a unanimous decision in his first trial, Zandipour was found guilty of the killing during a retrial in May.

After the sentence was handed down, Hardy's father David addressed reporters outside the court, calling for an end to street violence. "Everyone loses here today, I hope that after this marathon legal journey, everyone comes away with some inner peace," he said. "[Zandipour]'s unfortunately destroyed his life and obviously destroyed so many lives along the way."

According to Victoria Police, the rate of assaults and related offences has actually been rising since Hardy's death. In the year between March 2015 and March 2016, the number of violent incidents reported jumped 9.5 percent.