AN ex-con involved in an early hours altercation was bare-chested when police arrived at the scene in Haslingden.

Burnley magistrates heard how Andrew John Jackson, 28, was aggressive and unco-operative, shouted and swore and told officers: “Get off me.”

Police had been called to Townsend Street in the early hours, after reports of three rowdy men banging on doors and shouting as residents were in their beds.

Jackson, who was not wearing a shirt, had been arrested after officers went down a back street to cut him off.

Jobless Jackson, then of Charles Lane, Haslingden, but now of Market Street, Bacup, admitted being drunk and disorderly on September 5.

He was fined £35, with £85 costs and must pay a £20 victim surcharge.

Jackson has served time behind bars for violence, including five years for slashing a man's face and neck with a knife.

In February last year, he was locked up for 18 months, after subjecting his mother-of-two then-partner to an horrific New Year attack when he repeatedly sank his teeth into her face and threatened to bite her nose off. The drugged-up defendant had grabbed his victim by the throat and bit her on each cheek in the sustained assault at her Haslingden home.

He then threw her on the bed, asked for sex, bit her nose twice, splattering the room with blood and told her: "You won't be beautiful anymore."

Jackson had admitted assault causing actual bodily harm and was sentenced at Burnley Crown Court.

Ben Leech, defending Jackson in the drunk and disorderly case, said he met up with a friend and they had been drinking throughout the day.

The friend brought along a man named Jimbo, who took issue with the defendant and started a fight with him.

Jackson would say he immediately tried to calm the situation down.

Mr Leech continued: "The jacket was ripped from his back. He was forced to walk away without any upper clothing. He was approached from behind and immediately thought it was Jimbo coming back to continue the fracas. He then realised it was a police officer."

Jackson, who regretted his behaviour, was working with the police-run Revolution Project. Mr Leech added: “He seems to be, in my view, heading in the right direction.”