A GATECRASHER literally turned “party-pooper” after being asked to leave the party, a court heard.

Francis James Oakes was challenged after he turned up drunk and uninvited at the house which ended in him going after an argument.

However, a short time later the 31-year-old returned and threw paper towels containing dog muck into a gazebo where the partygoers were gathered, said Ian West, prosecuting.

The man who had earlier asked him to leave went out to confront him.

But, Oakes responded by hitting him three times with a metal object, believed to have been a wrench.

One blow caused a gash to his head, which was treated with seven stitches at hospital. The other two caused extensive bruising to the victim’s back, while he also suffered arm injuries when he fell to the ground.

Mr West said other people at the party in the village of No Place, near Stanley, came out to help the injured man, while Oakes left.

He was arrested a short time later and, when interviewed, he denied any wrong-doing, claiming the other man came at him and he just pushed him away.

But, with a trial date pencilled in next month, the case returned to Durham Crown Court yesterday (Friday, April 29) when Oakes, formerly of John Street, in Beamish Village, but now of Sulgrave Road, Washington, admitted unlawful wounding and possessing an offensive weapon in public in the early hours of Sunday, July 12.

The court heard he has no previous convictions, but was cautioned for battery after striking a colleague outside a pub following a row on a work night out in May 2014.

David Lamb, mitigating, said despite what the court had heard “there is another side to the defendant.”

Mr Lamb, who handed several references in on behalf of Oakes, told Judge Christopher Prince: “He’s a positive, caring person, someone who almost everyone who comes into contact with, considers to be a law-abiding, sensitive man.

“He’s not the nasty, unpleasant man portrayed here, although he accepts he had been drinking quite heavily that night.”

Jailing him for 18 months, Judge Prince told Oakes: “You turned up at that house uninvited and it was made clear you were not wanted there.

“You left, but seem to have taken particular insult at not being wanted.”

Judge Prince said following his unpleasant gesture, hurling the dog dirt into the marquee at the Gladstone Street house, Oakes appears to have “loitered, preparing for a confrontation”.

He added that anyone hitting someone with a metal bar, or similar object, should expect prison.