The mother of a footballer left with brain damage by a brutal assault in Crete has compared winning a seven-year struggle for justice to a lottery jackpot.

Maggie Hughes, whose son Robbie barely survived the 2008 attack, spoke of her relief this week after watching Curtis Taylor, Sean Branton, Daniel Bell and Joseph Bruckland convicted of grievous bodily harm at Greek court.

They were bailed on appeal after being first found guilty in 2012, but were convicted again on Wednesday last week.

The four thugs were handed suspended three-year prison sentences at a court in the Cretian city of Heraklion and ordered to pay a 10,000 europ (£7,300 ) fine between the four of them.

LAST WEEK: Mother's relief after four men convicted again of beating footballer Robbie Hughes into coma

Mrs Hughes, of Wallington, said: "The sentence means nothing to me. What matters to me is when I heard the word 'guilty'. 

"I don't know what it's like to win the lottery, but that guilty verdict meant everything to me because I knew that that's the word it should have been and that it brought justice.

"They will have to walk around for the rest of their lives with the word 'guilty' on a t-shirt and that to me is fantastic. That tag will always be with them."

Robbie, now 35, played for Croydon Athletic, Sutton United and Oxford United before the vicious assault prematurely ended his career. 

The brutal beating - in which Taylor, Bell, and Branton, of Horley, Surrey, and Bruckland, of Hookwood, Surrey, punched and kicked him and slashed him with a bottle outside a nightclub in Malia - left Robbie with permanent memory problems and he still struggles to recall family and friends.

His mother, of Wallington, said: "We have had so many brick walls to jump over as a family. People would say to me, 'Did you not want to give up?'

"And of course I did sometimes, but as soon as I looked at my son I thought, no. I gave him my word when he was lying there in that coma: 'I am going to get justice for you.' And I got it.

"It took seven years, but I got it."

Demetrius Danas, the family's lawyer, said: "Robbie’s family, and in particular his mother, have fought tirelessly for many years.

"The outcome of this appeal by the defendants is that the guilty verdict has been upheld, bringing to an end the criminal proceedings in this case."

Mrs Hughes, who successfully campaigned for a European law change in the wake of her son's assault, now plans to continue fighting to ensure better support of victims of crime overseas. 

She said: "I have managed to open up those doors. I haven't got a crown, I haven't got a badge and I haven't got an OBE, and if I can do it there is hope for those other victims out there."