A BINGE drinker who bit another man during a late-night fight on Ouse Bridge has escaped an immediate jail sentence.

One witness saw the victim’s lip “hanging open” after Paul Michael Clarke’s action, and doctors had to use 14 stitches to mend it, said Michael Cahill, prosecuting at York Crown Court.

Clarke himself suffered a broken ankle in the fight, during which a car had to swerve round the men when they tumbled into the road at about half-past midnight on May 16.

After watching CCTV of the incident, Judge Rodney Jameson QC told Clarke: “It is difficult to say what the origin of it was, or the rights and wrongs of it, other than two people clearly keen to engage one with the other, one of which was you.”

He passed a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months on condition Clarke did 160 hours’ unpaid work and 18 months’ supervision.

He was also fined £100 for possession of amphetamine which he had on him during the fight, plus £670 prosecution costs, plus an £80 statutory surcharge.

Clarke, 33, of Fifth Avenue, Tang Hall, pleaded guilty to affray and possessing amphetamine. A charge of wounding, which he denied, was left on file.

Mr Cahill said the victim was not prosecuted for any offence in connection with the fight.

For Clarke, Mark Partridge said he had very little recollection of the fight as he had been drinking.

He may have bitten the other man because he was in pain from his ankle.

“The defendant does drink to excess, not every weekend, and not every night,” said Mr Partridge.

His drinking could also be linked to his tendency to be depressed because of events in his childhood.

Otherwise, he was a hard-working man, said the solicitor advocate.

Mr Cahill said the victim had drunk about ten pints by 10pm the evening of the fight and had no memory of it.

The bite had happened when both men were on the ground with Clarke underneath.

When police were called to the scene, Clarke was abusive to officers continuously from the time they arrested him until he was checked into the cells at Fulford Road Police Station. There a search found the amphetamine.