A YORK man who attacked two innocent people knocked one out in front of his family and broke the other's cheekbone in two separate displays of violence, a court heard.

As one victim, Christopher Gibson, lay unconscious on the ground, his wife told Edward Wharton, 26, what she thought of him.

He replied: "My name's Ed Boy Wharton, if you want to tell the police" and walked off.

Wharton had wrongly accused Mr Gibson of trapping his fingers in a taxi door when he punched him to the ground in front of his wife and 12-year-old son, said Felicity Davies, prosecuting.

Mr Gibson broke an ankle as he fell on being punched as he waited for a taxi outside the Britannia pub, in Acomb.

Mr and Mrs Gibson had booked the taxi to take their son to an out-of-school lesson.

When the taxi arrived, Wharton and another man thought it was for them. They got in and had to be persuaded to get out. As they did so, Wharton's companion accidentally trapped Wharton's fingers in the door.

Wharton accused Mr Gibson of injuring him, and when Mr Gibson denied it, Wharton attacked him.

At the time of the attack, Wharton was on bail for breaking Peter Wood's cheekbone in The Crescent Working Men's Club four months earlier, on New Year's Eve 2001, said Miss Davies.

That night, Leanne Dixon, the girlfriend of Wharton's cousin, had started a fight with Mr Wood's partner, Frances Waugh.

During the disturbance, Wharton punched club member Mr Wood with a single blow that left his face looking lopsided and broke his cheekbone.

"Normally speaking, someone not mentally ill who commits these offices merits a substantial term of imprisonment," Judge Robert Taylor said at York Crown Court.

But after hearing that Wharton had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he adjourned sentence so defence lawyers could investigate possible psychiatric treatment.

Wharton, of Nunthorpe Crescent, South Bank, pleaded guilty to two offences of causing actual bodily harm and was released on bail.

His barrister, Jonathan Carroll, said that on both occasions, he had responded to a situation not of his own making.

He had in the past tried to commit suicide and had been under a curfew as a bail condition for nearly 18 months.

Updated: 10:25 Tuesday, June 03, 2003