A FORMER doorman who headbutted a nightclub customer has been freed from jail by a judge but ordered to carry out 200 hours community work.

David Knight, 33, was locked up for three weeks on remand after pleading guilty to assaulting David Nicklin and causing him actual bodily harm outside Time club in Blackwell Street, Kidderminster.

He refused the victim entry, claiming he had been barred on a previous occasion, said Tariq Shakoor, prosecuting.

But after an argument Knight butted him to the ground where he struck his face on a pavement. Two teeth were chipped and he needed six stitches in a chin cut.

Judge Marten Coates was told that Mr Nicklin apologised after the incident on January 21, shook his attacker's hand and was reluctant to make a complaint.

The judge said he believed the experience of prison in Knight's case was as much a punishment as the length of sentence.

Besides the community work, he ordered Knight, of Hume Street, Kidderm-inster, to pay £517 prosecution costs.

Worcester Crown Court heard that the defendant had been a part-time doorman at night and a paper warehouse worker by day.

Nicolas Cartwright, defending, said he had now lost his warehouse job and had voluntarily given up being a doorman.

He had been a hard-working, diligent man who had overreacted to provocation. He had no previous convictions.