A RUGBY League player must pay £350 compensation to the drunken man he felled with a single blow in Selby town centre.

Michael Stuart Emmett, 19, was one of two people who attacked victim David Cavill who was so drunk his friends had to help him walk, prosecutor Susan Kerr told York Crown Court.

First Emmett felled him in Market Place, Selby, following an argument in a taxi-queue at about 3am on Sunday, October 1.

Then, as Mr Cavill lay on the ground, a 17-year-old Selby youth punched him twice in the face.

Neither attacker knew each other or were acting together.

Mr Cavill woke up the next morning in York Hospital with a broken face bone and no memory of either attack or how he got there, said Mrs Kerr.

The prosecution say the youth's attack broke the face bone and Emmett's punch gave him a cut lip.

"This was an assault on a man who was defenceless due to drink," said Recorder Timothy Roberts QC.

"You are a fit and healthy young man.

"To be going out and drinking 15 pints of beer and getting involved in witless fights in pubs is not something you should have anything to do with," the judge told Emmett.

He ordered Emmett to pay £350 compensation to Mr Cavill, £340 prosecution costs and conditionally discharged him for 12 months. Emmett, of Field Avenue, Thorpe Willoughby, pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm.

The youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to a similar offence last month and his case was adjourned for sentence to Selby Youth Court, which has yet to hear it.

For Emmett, Sam Andrews said he was a keen rugby league player, who trained four times a week with a club in a professional league. The attack was out of character.

He accepted responsibility for cutting Mr Cavill's lip, though he maintained that he pushed Mr Cavill and did not punch him as the prosecution say he did.