THE captain of the Oxford University ice hockey team was struck over the head with a whisky bottle in a clash involving a pig’s head and a blow-up doll.

Benjamin Sheppard threw the empty 750ml bottle, hitting student Matthew Alkitis, in a clash between two drunken groups in St Cross Road, Oxford.

Prosecutor Jonathan Stone said the defendant, then 17, was out on October 16 last year with a group of friends and had drunk “a number of pints and also brandies”.

Sheppard, of Kingston Road, North Oxford, and his group were seen on CCTV kicking a pig’s head around the road, he said.

The Oxford University ice hockey team, who were on an initiation night out for new members, then came across them, Mr Stone told Oxford Crown Court on Friday.

One of the university team “had a blow-up doll with him and that seems to be the crux of what happened” he said.

Mr Stone said: “There were 10 to 15 in Sheppard’s group, blocking their path. They made the students feel somewhat uneasy.

“One of the defendant’s group grabbed the blow-up doll and Mr Sheppard jumped on it, kicked it, punched it, and the doll was deflated.”

Bottles and glases were thrown, he said, and Sheppard then took off his top, picked up the bottle and, according to his basis of plea, threw it over a wall, Mr Stone said.

The bottle hit Mr Alkitis on the head, leaving him with a wound that needed stitching.

Graham Bennett, defending, said Sheppard had thrown the bottle in the general direction of the group but had not meant to hit anyone with it.

He said: “There hadn’t been any deliberate intention to cause injury to anybody.

“He realised what had happened and panicked and, to his great regret now, disappeared from the scene while the injured party was being attended to.”

Sheppard, now 18, has since been given a caution for possessing cannabis with intent to supply and convicted of a public-order offence on his 18th birthday night out in March.

Judge Anthony King said: “It does look as though he was acting in a thoroughly yobbish and totally unacceptable way on the streets of Oxford on two occasions.”

He gave Sheppard a four-month jail term, suspended for two years.

The defendant must also do 100 hours’ unpaid work and pay £500 compensation and £275 costs.