BURNLEY FC's children's soccer coach has gone to jail for six months for an "angry and jealous" nightclub attack.

Newly-wed John Lister, 32, who will now lose his job as the club's Football in the Community schools liaison officer, wept in the dock as a judge told him this area was "plagued" with such "unprovoked violence" and for that reason he had to go to prison.

Judge David Pirie said Lister's assault on victim Simon Lister, a special constable, to whom he was not related, had been angry and jealous.

He said Lister had run at his victim, who had been talking to Lister's wife Claire for about 40 minutes, punched him repeatedly and driven him backwards. The man suffered a wound, bruises and a fractured right cheek which led to numbness due to nerve damage, after the attack at Burnley's Mean Cat Daddies nightclub.

The judge said many, many people had written letters in support of Lister's work for the club and in the community and his behaviour was out of character.

Lister, of Humphrey Street, Brierfield, was convicted by a Burnley Crown Court jury of unlawful wounding.

Paul Hague, defending, said among the many letters supporting Lister, two had come from headteachers and one from the chairman of Burnley Football Club, Frank Teasdale.

The offence was totally out of character and Lister was not a man who was a danger to the community. He was a thoroughly decent man who acted in haste and foolishness and has regretted it ever since.

Mr Hague said custody would break Lister and went on: "He has been very, very, worried about this."

When Lister was convicted he was suspended from work and a petition to have him reinstated had been started.

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