FIGHTING with his friend in Oxford city centre has left a man facing a community order and 50 hours of unpaid work.

Christopher Owens, of Lodden Avenue, Berinsfield, admitted using threatening, insulting or abusive words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress on April 6.

Owens, 37, got into an argument with his friend Stuart Newport outside the Bell and Compass pub, in New Road, over a football match the two had played in earlier in the day.

He was warned by police but was then seen again by an officer pushing and shoving his friend in Bonn Square later in the evening.

He also breached a suspended sentence order made in November 2011 for 12 weeks, suspended for two years, for two counts of causing actual bodily harm.

Henry James, defending, said: “This was not a pretty sight to see on an evening out in Oxford.

“But in my submission it was not the worst that has occurred.”

Judge Gordon Risius gave Owens a six-month community order with 50 hours of unpaid work and told him to pay a £60 victims’ surcharge and £300 costs. He told Owens it would be “unjust” to activate his suspended sentence but warned him to stay out of trouble.