Pair avoid jail term after incident in city

UNPROVOKED ATTACK OUTSIDE UNION STREET NIGHTCLUB

- CARL EVE

TWO visiting rugby players from Wales whose video-filming antics outside a Plymouth nightclub left a man with a permanent facial scars and in fear of being out in public have narrowly avoided a jail sentence - but must pay a total of £4,000 in compensation.

David Butler, aged 22, from Cwmrhydyceirw, near Swansea, and Alex Gibby, aged 27, from Cwmbwrla, in Swansea, had both pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm without intent to their victim at a previous court hearing and were sentenced at Plymouth Crown Court last week.

Prosecutor Michael Brown told the court how their victim had been out drinking in Plymouth city centre with friends on the evening of May 1 last year.

By the early hours of May 2, he had attended Popworld nightclub in Union Street, but door staff there refused him entry and urged him to "sober up". He went to nearby railings and leant on them, facing the road, where he phoned a friend.

Butler and Gibby were with a number of other young men standing nearby outside the club when they spotted the victim. In what Mr Brown described as a "totally unprovoked assault", they both ran up to him from behind, grabbed his legs and flipped him over the railings into the road.