A JUDGE has hit out at drunk-enness being used as an excuse for violence — and said she was sick of hearing it.

Judge Beverley Lunt made her comments when she was sentencing a 20-year-old for knocking another man out in an early hours large-scale brawl near a Colne nightclub.

The judge had been told Nicholas Weinburg had ‘got incredibly drunk’ at a 21st birthday party before the fracas in Skipton Road.

Judge Lunt told Burnley Crown Court: “I am getting really fed up with this.

"There are a lot of people in our society who get drunk. Their response is not to explode into violence.

“Drink is not the trigger. It means there is something wrong with the defendant. When he is drunk he is dangerous.”

Weinburg, who had previous convic-tions for using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour and criminal damage, had sobbed in the dock during the proceedings.

He had been locked up for 30 minutes by the judge while she decided what to do with him.

She spared him immediate jail but warned him if he flouted the law again, ‘the inside of a cell was a sign of things to come’.

Judge Lunt, who had watched a CCTV recording of the melee told Weinburg: “The sight of that group of young males, including you and the victim, posturing, fighting, running down the street, regardless of anybody else who might be out enjoying a nice evening, it’s just depressing and extremely worrying.”

She said the defendant had had ‘no good reason whatsoever’ to punch Mark Reid.

Weinburg, of Smith Street, Colne, had admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm on December 13.

He was given 24 weeks in prison, suspended for a year, with 100 hours unpaid work and £400 costs.

The defendant was seen breaking into a jog, launched a blow at someone and as the victim was waving his arms, trying to calm the situation, he circled him, hit him and ‘poleaxed’ him.

Charlotte Holland, for Weinburg, said in almost all other ways, her client was a hard-working, sensible young man.