During a 35-minute attack, a disabled man with a walking frame was viciously assaulted by Benjamin Peter Twine as motorists drove past without offering help.
Knocked to the ground by a punch to the head, the man was repeatedly kicked and stomped in public.
At one stage Twine threw the walking frame across the road and hit the man with a garbage bin, asking him to beg for his life.
Twine also issued vile threats during the June 2022 assault in Brisbane's south.
He told the man he would chop his head off with a samurai sword, stab him in the neck, set him on fire and pour sulphuric acid all over his body.
CCTV footage captured the Greenslopes attack, the court was told.
"At one point during the CCTV footage you can hear the complainant crying, asking him 'what have I done?" crown prosecutor Sam Rigby said.
The man was travelling alongside a road with his mobility frame when he was set upon by Twine in the early hours, the court heard.
"No one stopped him (Twine)? Surely someone must have seen it?" Judge Paul Smith said of the attack.
Mr Rigby said CCTV footage showed cars driving past during the assault without stopping to help.
The man was later treated for minor injuries.
Twine and the man knew each other and lived at the same residential housing, the court heard.
Twine thought the man had disrespected his female partner before the attack, defence barrister Troy Newman said.
There was no suggestion of unsoundness of mind, the court was told.
But Mr Newman said Twine was a victim of sexual abuse as a teenager and it provided some explanation to the offending.
He said the CCTV footage showed a man struggling with a mental health episode.
"An episode? What do you mean? " Judge Smith said.
Mr Newman replied: "He (Twine) said he just had an episode where he saw his (sexual abuse) offender in the face of the victim".
A psychology report said Twine, 43, had personality and substance use disorders, unspecified trauma as well as a provisional bipolar diagnosis.
He had struggled with drugs since the age of 17.
"I do form the view that your mental health condition significantly contributed to this offending," Judge Smith said.
Twine also appeared in court for a 2021 New Year's Day incident in which he put a man in a headlock and repeatedly punched him while a co-accused had a knife.
Twine - who had a "dreadful" criminal history of more than 20 pages - breached a suspended sentence with the 2021 assault and committed the 2022 attack while on bail.
He pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm while armed in company and serious assault on Wednesday.
Twine received a suspended three-and-a-half year jail sentence along with three years' probation on strict conditions.
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