TWO doormen pushed a nightclub customer down a flight of stairs and kicked him into near-unconsciousness outside a York nightclub, a jury has heard.

Ashley Tunstill told York Crown Court that he still suffers a tingling in his face more than a year after the violence inside and outside the Gallery nightclub that left him with black eyes, a fractured cheekbone and "blood pouring from everywhere".

He alleged he nearly blacked out as he was hit repeatedly on the head and body.

Doorman Marc Shane Ward, 30, of High Petergate, York, denies actual bodily harm. His fellow doorman Paul Anthony Sawford, 30, then living in Harrogate, was convicted of the same offence at a trial at York Crown Court earlier this year.

Opening the prosecution against Ward, David Hall told the jury that security staff at the nightclub evicted Mr Tunstill in the early hours of December 27 after he was involved in an incident with a man on crutches.

Sawford butted Mr Tunstill in the face, causing him considerable pain and with Ward and two other doormen took the customer through a fire escape.

Mr Hall showed the jury a video in which two of the four returned to the club while the other two, Ward and Sawford, took Mr Tunstill down the fire escape and pushed him down its last flight of stairs, which contains 18 steps. They and Mr Tunstill then disappeared out of sight.

Mr Hall alleged that a landlady from an adjoining pub and another woman saw both doormen repeatedly kick Mr Tunstill as he lay on the ground defenceless.

The doormen were entitled to use force in evicting Mr Tunstill, said Mr Hall.

"However, once outside, the degree of force was well over the top, even if they had been entitled to attack Mr Tunstill.

"You may think," he told the jury, "There was no way it would be ever reasonable or proper to kick him once on the ground."

Mr Hall said that the prosecution accepted that Sawford was the more aggressive of the two, but argued that Ward also took part in the attack.

Mr Tunstill said he had drunk between six and eight pints that evening, but was not drunk. He agreed with defence counsel Paul Williams that his cheekbone could have been broken in the head-butt.

The trial continues.

Updated: 08:43 Thursday, April 11, 2002