A MAN with a history of violence towards his mother has been jailed for biting a man’s face in a pub fight.

Christopher Attwooll, prosecuting, said James David Duckett tried to provoke Sam Rowley in the Golden Lion, Selby, and blocked his way back to the bar area from the toilets.

In the fight that followed, Duckett got the victim in a headlock and bit through his lower lip. It needed stitching inside and outside.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst said: “You were itching for a fight. What you did in the course of that fight was, of course, not only disgusting, but very dangerous, because you were using your teeth as a weapon.”

Duckett, 22, formerly of Charles Street, Selby, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent on June 4 and was jailed for four years.

York Crown Court heard he had previous convictions for false imprisonment, harassment and assaulting his mother, and in his youth had been given an antisocial behaviour order.

Mr Attwooll said some weeks before the incident in the Golden Lion, Duckett had poured his drink over Mr Rowley’s head in what appeared to be an attempt to provoke a fight. On June 4, he had gone out of his way to walk past Mr Rowley and had been told by bar staff to stay away from him.

But after Mr Rowley went to the toilet, Duckett confronted him and despite the efforts of a third man to pull him away, grabbed Mr Rowley in a headlock.

For Duckett, David Taylor said he had had too much to drunk.

He suffered from a social anxiety disorder that made it difficult for him to communicate with other people and had a history of epilepsy.

He felt he had been attacked first in the Golden Lion and did not accept responsibility for the incident two or three weeks earlier.