A DRUNKEN man who headbutted a door supervisor outside a pub in Darlington has narrowly avoided a custodial sentence.

Benjamin Bower admitted attacking the man after they clashed outside the pub but claimed he was acting out of fear for his own safety, claiming that the injured man had threatened to "shoot him".

The 23-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of common assault by beating appeared when he appeared before magistrates in Newton Aycliffe.

The attack happened outside the Joseph Pease pub just after midnight on Saturday, March 3 when the defendant was asked to show his id to get into the pub, the court heard.

John Garside, prosecuting, told the bench that the injured party suffered a cut to the bridge of his nose as a result of the headbutt which left him bleeding from the wound.

“The defendant headbutted the victim to the face causing a minor cut to his nose,” he said. “The door supervisor flagged down a passing police car and the defendant was arrested.

“The complainant said he was in a lot of pain and there was a lot of blood coming from his nose and noticed the bridge of his nose had been split open.”

The court heard that the defendant, of Salters Lane South, Darlington, who represented himself during the hearing, had a caution for common assault in 2014.

In mitigation, he said: “On my behalf, the man was using threatening behaviour and he said that he would shoot me. I felt threatened, so I lashed out and ran away. He was behaving in a threatening way when he asked me for my ID.”

Chair of the bench, Louise Overton told the defendant that he was lucky to not be facing the prospect of a custodial sentence.

She said: “This is something that we are not going to tolerate. You are looking at a community order but we could have been taking this to a higher level, and possibly custody, but we are not going to do that – we are asking for a probation report.”

The probation officer told the court that Bower had said he was sorry for the offence and had been remorseful about what he did on the night.

Sentencing Bower, Mrs Overton said: “You are 23-years-old but you have an attitude that comes across as though you don’t appear to be respectful and we would warn you that if you do it in court we will treat is as contempt.”

Bower was give a 12-month community order with 150 hours of unpaid work. The roofer was also ordered to pay £200 compensation to the victim of the assault.