A drunken middle-aged couple and a woman who brought in the New Year with a bar brawl walked free from court- but not without a ticking off from a judge.

Burnley Crown Court heard how two men and a woman were injured in the melee at the Malt Shovel pub in Burnley when Peter Green, 41, Victoria Green, 39, and Melanie Kelly, 34, started trouble as 2005 dawned.

The trio had been fighting with people, sprawling on the floor and kicking out.

Victoria Green and Kelly had been arguing with bar staff and Peter Green, who had been asked to leave the pub, went back and intervened.

In the fracas victims John Hancock and Jimmy Ellis were injured and the two women were both said to have "tackled," Miss Lord who also ended up hurt.

Sentencing, Judge Pamela Badley said the three defendants were middle-aged but had behaved in a disgraceful, unseemly and inappropriate way- like 16 to 18 year olds who could not take their drink wuite often did in pubs.

She said the trio, all of good character, had let down their families, those who knew them and their employers dreadfully.

Judge Badley told Peter Green his wife had been committing an offence and he had compunded it.

She went on: "The two women were having an argument with bar staff who were doing their jobs.

"They were sober and you were not."

The judge added she was not sending the defendants to jail because they had not flouted the law before, had admitted their guilt, were in work and had responsible lives.

But she went on: "This sort of behaviour cannot be condoned."

The Greens, of The Moorings, and Kelly, of Edgeley Court, all Burnley, admitted affray in the early hours of last January 1.

Peter Green was given 100 hours community service and must pay £100 compensation each to Mr Hancock and Mr Ellis.

Victoria Green, said to have a back problem, was given 50 hours community service.

Kelly was given 100 hours community service and both she and Victoria Green must pay £50 compensation to Miss Lord. All the defendants must pay £328 costs.