PEOPLE in Harrogate must be sick and tired of street violence, a visiting judge told an offender yesterday.

District Judge Sheila Driver, from Sheffield, was sitting at Harrogate Magistrates' Court when 21-year-old Paul Lawrence was brought before her after he had got involved in a fight on the street while out celebrating a friend's birthday.

Lawrence, of Butler Road, Harrogate, pleaded guilty to using threatening behaviour which provoked a fear of violence, but claimed that he had been the one to suffer in the fight.

Andrew Wallington, prosecuting, said that Lawrence and another man had been arrested after closed-circuit television camera operators had alerted police to a fight involving a group of six to eight males in Station Parade on September 30.

There was pushing and shoving and punches had been thrown, with Lawrence claiming he had been the one who suffered from blows to his nose and left ear.

In mitigation, Peter Olley said Lawrence, a JCB driver, had lost his job as a result of time off work as the case proceeded.

"All in all, it has been a disaster for him," said Mr Olley.

''He works six or seven days a week and rarely goes out in the evening as he has neither the time nor the energy.

"But, for once in a blue moon, he had been into town, celebrating a friend's birthday."

District Judge Driver fined Lawrence a total of £175 with £60 costs, and left him in no doubt as to how his actions affected others. She told him: "I am sure Harrogate is no different from anywhere else with people sick and tired of this type of behaviour happening in the town centre."