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

David Knight, aged 33, was remanded in custody for three weeks after admitting 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 at Worcester Crown Court yesterday.

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

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

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

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

The 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.