A BOUNCER at a Darwen nightclub, who propelled a customer down a flight of stairs and left him with a broken knee, should never have been working there in the first place, a court heard.

Forty-six-year-old Zane Ainscough intervened when customer Artur Koscienicki and a Polish friend began abusing a barmaid in Polish at Level One in Market Street, Burnley Crown Court was told.

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Ainscough escorted Mr Koscienicki to the door, after the customer's friend had already been ejected, and accepted he had given him an unnecessary push at the top of the stairs, causing him to fall.

But it later emerged that the doorman, who lives in Crossfield Drive, Wigan, had secured his post at the Darwen club under false pretences.

Prosecutor Kimberley Obrusik said that bosses at Level One knew Ainscough by the name Paul Thomas.

He had applied to the Security Industry Association under that identity for a personal licence.

She told the court that the defendant had an extensive criminal record, including offences of violence committed between 1983 and 2012, which would have effectively been a bar to his employment.

He admitted to an offence of causing grievous bodily harm to Mr Koscienicki and a charge of fraud by false representation, for the £4,680 he received in wages from the club before the first incident.

Judge Michael Leeming QC gave him a 22-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with a specified activities requirement, to be supervised by the probation service.

Miss Obrusik said the victim had been in the club with a friend, ordering drinks, on March 27, at around 11.30pm, when the second man became abusive and was asked to leave the premises.

"The complainant's friend verbally abused the barmaid in Polish. But the barmaid was in fact Polish and in fact understood what was being said to her.

"As a result of her understanding of the level of abuse he was ejected from the club," she added.

The court heard that Mr Koscienicki was escorted out a short time later. After his fall down the stairs he went home but experienced continuing pain in his knee. He was placed in a cast for a broken knee and suffered problems with the leg for eight months.