Budapest - A Hungarian court on Friday sentenced a man to life imprisonment for his part in the murder of a teacher who was beaten to death in front of his children.

Szogi Lajos, 44, was pulled from his car by enraged villagers in October, 2006 after bumping into a 12-year-old girl as he drove through Olaszliszka in the famous Tokaj wine region in north-eastern Hungary.

The girl fell into a roadside ditch, but was unharmed, and a subsequent police investigation found no signs of impact on the car.

Described during sentencing as a menace to society with a string of previous convictions, the girl's father was given a life sentence and will spend a minimum of 30 years in jail for leading the attack.

Seven other defendants in the case were also sentenced for participating in the mob attack.

Five received 15-year prison terms, among them the girl's mother and brother, while two minors were sentenced to 10 years in a juvenile detention centre.

The leading judge in the trial, Attila Czibrik, described while passing sentence how the teacher had been systematically beaten for 10 to 15 minutes before he died.

"The victim was subjected to a prolonged, extraordinarily brutal beating, completely without humanity," Czibrik said, as quoted by the news agency MTI.

The case sent shockwaves across the country. As the attackers were Roma, it led to a sharp increase in racial tension between Hungary's majority population and the ethnic Roma minority.

The controversial far right paramilitary group, the Hungarian Guard, even staged an anti-Roma demonstration in Olaszliszka as part of a self-styled crusade against what it calls "gypsy crime."

In recent months, there have been over a dozen violent attacks against Roma homes across Hungary. Three attacks with petrol bombs and guns that left five dead, are thought to have been ethnically motivated.

The father and a daughter of the murdered teacher were in court as the sentence was read out, MTI reported.

The father reportedly said he agreed with the decision of the court to impose the maximum penalty, but said he would like to see the death penalty reinstated as imprisonment "cannot be compared" to what his son suffered.

The court's verdict is subject to appeal.(dpa)