A MAN who was brought in as “muscle” to remove a troublesome customer from a social club is behind bars after leaving the drinker with life-changing injuries in a brutal and sustained attack.

Nicholas Farrer, 40, who operated a security firm offering services to pubs, was called to the HMS Victory Club, in Easington Colliery, to deal with a rowdy patron, Durham Crown Court was told on Monday.

When the man ran away Farrer pursued him through the streets before punching him to ground and kicking him repeatedly as he lay there.

The victim suffered a life-threatening head injury and was hospitalised for two months, the court was told.

Sentencing Farrer to three years and one month in jail, Judge Christopher Prince said: “This was a serious and sustained attack.

“You set out to pursue your victim who fled through the streets and you went way beyond any form of offering security to the premises you attended.

“You attended at request of licensee and took it on yourself to launch an attack upon him kicking him repeatedly when he was on the ground.”

The court heard evidence in mitigation that Farrer’s father was gravely ill. But, the judge said: “It is likely because of the sentence you are going to receive you will not see your father again.

“That is a matter that may weigh on your conscience as you are serving a custodial sentence. If you wanted to be a son who was available to tender affection and care to your parent you should not have pursued people through the night with the view to attacking them.”

Joanne Kidd, prosecuting, said the victim was being generally threatening to customers and making a nuisance of himself on the evening of January 3.

Licensee Robert Davison contacted Farrer, who the club paid £200 a month for security.

The victim remains unable to work, suffers short-term memory loss and has lost three stone since the attack, the court heard. He has no recollection of the attack and says when he regained consciousness he thought he had fallen from a cliff in a foreign country.

Davison, 31, of School Street, Easington Colliery, who drove Farrer away from the scene was sentenced to eight months suspended for two years after pleading guilty to assisting an offender. He was also ordered to do 130 hours unpaid work

Farrer of East Shaw Village, Seaham, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm.