‘It’s the usual sodding pathetic story'

9:32am Tuesday 8th July 2008

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TWO teenagers who were involved in a ‘pathetic’ drunken brawl on Bridge Street have escaped jail sentences.

Dean Wilcox, of Weymouth Road, Burtonwood, and Christopher Devine, aged 18 of Whitebeam Close, Runcorn, appeared in Manchester Crown Court on July 1 after admitting affray.

‘It just makes you want to despair doesn’t it? I am afraid it’s an all too familiar situation... This sort of scene scares people from going out at night.’

Judge Stephen Clarke

The court heard the two men left the bar 53 Degrees at around 2am on January 21 with friends and met a group of drunken men.

Wilcox admitted pushing and shoving some of them.

The 19-year-old said that he ran off because he was on bail for another crime, committed in October last year when Wilcox found out that his girlfriend had slept with someone else and went round to the person’s house to fight him.

However he wasn’t there so he punched the man who opened the door.

Meanwhile Devine, aged 18, admitted kicking one of the victims while he was the ground outside the Bridge Street bar and admitted making a few punches.

Judge Stephen Clarke, said: “It seems to me all of the men were drunk. It’s the usual sodding, pathetic story. It just makes you want to despair doesn’t it? I am afraid it’s an all too familiar situation.

“You were all finding fault in each other. This sort of scene scares people from going out at night.”

Wilcox was given a 24-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to pay £500 compensation to the victim he punched in October.

Devine was given an 80-hour community order and had to pay prosecution costs of £350.

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