A LAGER lout on bail for violence injured a police community support officer (PCSO) during a large-scale city centre gathering, York magistrates heard.

Police estimated about 100 people were present when they arrived to deal with a disturbance close to Bobo Lobo in York city centre at 10.30pm on December 5, said Jane Chadwick, prosecuting.

As the PCSO tried to restrain a man who was fighting a door security officer, Edward Lee Stubbings, 19, threw an advertising board which hit her on the leg.

Stubbings, of Calf Close, Haxby, is awaiting sentence at York Crown Court for two offences of actual bodily harm committed in the city centre which he has admitted.

At York Magistrates Court he admitted assaulting an emergency worker - the PSCO.

He was given a community order with 10 days’ rehabilitative activities and was ordered to pay £200 to the PCSO, £85 prosecution costs and a £95 statutory surcharge.

His solicitor Tabitha Buck said Stubbings had thrown the board "recklessly" at a group that had “descended” on his friend.

The group had included the PCSO but he had not intended to hit her.

The ABHs had also occurred after Stubbings had been drinking.

He was a hard-working “upstanding member of society” when not in drink, she said.

Magistrates told Stubbings if he didn’t change his ways he would become someone people would not want to have as a friend or be with him.

They warned he would end up in prison if he continued to behave in a violent way.

Mrs Chadwick said the PCSO suffered pain.

Stubbings told police he had had a lot to drink but didn’t feel drunk.