A WANTED man played football against the police and didn't get arrested because the warrant for his arrest was lost.

Matthew MacFarlane, 20, of Aitken Street, Accrington, even sat in on a police interview as a responsible adult for someone and still wasn't detained, a court was told.

A warrant had been issued for the defendant's arrest in July 2005 but he was not arrested until almost two years on, in March this year.

MacFarlane was part of a "posse" which burst into a Great Harwood flat but thought charges against him had been dropped and did not attend court, Burn-ley Crown Court was told.

But police said they had never received the warrant and MacFarlane's solicitor was said to have been told by police they had no record of it, the court heard.

The defendant finally appeared at the court for sentence after being involved in the melee, in which four people were attacked. He admitted affray and possessing cannabis.

He was given 100 hours community punishment.

Sentencing, Recorder Arthur Noble told the defendant that if he was convicted of any future offences of violence, jail would follow.

David Pickup, prose-cuting, told the court that in May 2004 a group of young men were socialising at a property in Queen Street, Great Harwood, and in the early hours the defendant and three alleged accomplices banged on the door, demanding to be let in.

The door was forced open and the four went in, shouting, armed with bottles and wanting to know who had hit the sister of one of their number.

A man was punched in the face and hit to the back of the head with a bottle, another person was struck with a bottle across the head and a third person was hit by three people with fists. Two victims went to hospital for treatment.