A bouncer suffered fractured face bones when former York Wasps player and fellow doorman Lea Tichener attacked him in a restaurant, a court heard.

Dominic M'Benga said he had barred the 29-year-old rugby player from Merlin's and McMillan's several weeks earlier.

The player, a doorman at a city nightclub, did not like it, it was alleged.

Tichener's barrister, Robert Collins, claimed that Mr M'Benga wound up Tichener and the player hit out in self-defence.

Tichener, who lives in Foxton, Woodthorpe, denies causing grievous bodily harm.

Giving evidence at York Crown Court, Mr M'Benga said that in January last year he worked part-time as a security manager for the two pubs.

On January 2, he and three friends went out drinking. He drank a pint of bitter and four vodkas and diet cokes, then went to the Mogul Restaurant in Tanner Row for a meal.

While he was at the bar waiting for a drink, Tichener approached him and started talking about an incident which had happened some weeks previously during which Tichener's brother had been expelled from McMillan's.

Mr M'Benga alleged that Tichener was quite aggressive in the restaurant, using foul language and asking him who he thought he was.

"I told him it was just a joke. As far as I'm concerned we don't bar them (pubgoers), they bar themselves by their behaviour," said the bouncer.

He claimed Tichener butted him in the nose and he fell backwards. "Lea Tichener then straddled my chest and started to rain blows. He was punching me in the face."

He said he received six or seven blows and also felt other people hitting him. He wasn't sure if he had blacked out or not.

His friends helped him to his feet and he got a taxi home.

He said he suffered black eyes, a broken nose, a fractured right eye socket, a fracture to his right cheekbone, suffered considerable pain and double vision and on February 16 had to have an operation because his eyeball was trapped in the wrong position.

He went to hospital the day after the attack, having fallen unconscious at his home.

In cross examination, Mr Collins asked why he had not gone to the police until January 4, and why he did not go straight to the hospital from the restaurant.

He said his main concern was to tidy himself up and he didn't know the extent of his injuries.

"The truth is you had wound Tichener up in that restaurant," said Mr Collins.

"That is absolutely not true," said Mr M'Benga.

Asked why he had told the doctor at the hospital he couldn't recall details of the attack and that he had had five pints, Mr M'Benga replied the doctor must have got it wrong.

He agreed he is 6ft 4in tall and heavily built and had shaken hands with Tichener some days after the attack.

He told the jury he had had to shake hands with Tichener because he was going for a taxi and the only way to get to the taxi rank was to go through a group of which Tichener was a part.

Titchener played 99 times for York Rugby League Club after joining from Bramley in 1994.

The prop forward left the club last September but had resumed training with them in January, only to quit the following month.

The trial continues

Updated: 16:04 Tuesday, April 03, 2001