An actor who played a Somali pirate in a Hollywood blockbuster led a gang who battered a man so severely he suffered a brain haemorrhage.

Mohammed Abdi had a minor role in the 2013 Tom Hanks movie Captain Phillips - an action film the sentencing judge said he had seen ‘more than once’.

But away from the cameras Abdi was part of a hotheaded mob who ambushed rivals as they were coming out of south Manchester takeaways.

In the first attack, the victim was on his way out of Kansas Fried Chicken at Wilmslow Road, Rusholme, when his attackers, led by Abdi, pulled up in a Nissan Micra and set upon him.

The man was kicked into unconsciousness and suffered a fractured cheekbone, before being bundled into a car, driven off, and released after an hour.

Prosecutor Katy Jones said Abdi had previously been involved in a fraud case with the victim, and called him a ‘grass’ before the attack, at 6am, March 2, 2013.

The victim, who suffered a brain haemorrhage afterwards, told police he had been ‘paraded’ through the streets while unconscious, although this has not been proven.

At 10am on August 17 this year, Abdi also took part in a gang assault on a man suspected of insulting his friend in the McFresh bakery at Claremont Road, Moss Side.

The victim was cut to the arm after Abdi attacked him with a bottle in front of horrified staff and customers.

David Temkin, defending, said there was ‘another side’ to Abdi, who had a well-paid sales job and had enjoyed the ‘privileged experience’ of nine weeks filming in Morocco after being cast as in Captain Phillips, which tells the story of an oil tanker boarded by pirates.

Judge Martin Rudland, sentencing, said: “Was he in the capsule at the end when the Navy Seals were trying to get in? When I watched this film I thought where have they got these fantastic Somali actors from? They are extremely convincing.”

Jailing Abdi, 29, of Princess Road, Moss Side, for two-and-half years after he admitted two GBH charges, the judge said it was a ‘great shame’ to see him in the dock for the ‘deplorable’ attacks after his big screen achievement.

Describing the first incident, Judge Rudland said: “It’s a whisker between behaviour of this sort and death, but you were completely unmindful of that. Even when you got him unconscious on the pavement, lying there like a rag doll, you go about that appalling display of dragging, moving and shifting the dead weight of his body to get him into a motorcar.”

Abdi’s accomplices in that attack, Mohammed Omar Ali, 33, of Stockport Road, Longsight, and Hamid Hassan, 27, of Acomb Street, Hulme, were jailed for two years after admitting GBH.

His accomplices in the second attack, Ismail Warsama, 30, of Hammersmith, London, and Abdi Arteh, of Princess Road, Moss Side, got 12-month suspended sentences after admitting affray. Warsama has 180 hours unpaid work and a programme requirement, while Arteh has 150 unpaid work, a programme requirement and 12-months supervision.