A JUDGE has launched a scathing attack on four drunks involved in “appalling” violence in front of horrified parents and children on a train from York to Newcastle.

Teesside Crown Court heard passengers wept and feared for others’ safety when trouble flared on a night-time service in July 2012, with two of the yobs drunkenly barging past passengers and two others throwing punches at innocent passengers.

Defence lawyers said the four, all from the north east, were hard-working and usually decent people, but had been drinking.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, who handed suspended jail sentences to some of the defendants, described them as “steamingly drunk yobs,” whose behaviour affected women, men, children and families who all wished to have a peaceful journey.