A ‘SURLY teenager’ who attacked a disabled man and pushed him into the path of a van, has been spared jail.

Liam Vyse, 19, whose victim Philip Barnes may have given the appearance of being drunk, had thought what he did was ‘quite amusing’ and an onlooker had recorded his reaction on a mobile phone, Burnley Crown Court was told.

Mr Barnes, 55, was left with a cut above his eye, but got himself up and stumbled to some benches near Nelson Bus Station, where a woman tended to his injuries, the court heard.

Vyse, described by a judge and his barrister as a surly teenager, was warned he needed to grow up. The defendant, who thought he should be given a community sentence, got one, but not because it was what he wanted. Judge Beverley Lunt told him: “You don’t get to pick and choose sentence. I do.”

Vyse, of Princess Street, Nelson, admitted assault causing actual bodily ham, last July. He received 26 weeks in detention, suspended for a year, with 12 months’ supervision.