AN off duty police officer detained a drunken man using a bear-hug when it looked like he wanted to fight with a couple in Spalding’s Bridge Street.
Daniel Markham-Bright had first tried to shake hands with the officer who was at the Maple Leaf cafe and he had replied: “No thanks mate. I am not at work.”
Marie Stace, prosecuting, said PCSOs saw Markham-Bright a short time later and he was talking to a man and a woman and appeared to want a fight.
The off-duty officer got up and held Markham-Bright in a “bear hug” until other officers arrived to arrest him.
Miss Stace told Spalding magistrates: “The officer said this is the most appropriate way to take hold of someone when you have no protective equipment.”
Markham-Bright (21), of Fleet Road, Spalding, was fined £35 and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge when he pleaded guilty to being drunk and disorderly on July 23.
He was not represented by a solicitor at Thursday’s hearing.
Asked what sparked the incident, he said: “Drink and the people who I wanted to fight with had been at me for ages.”
Presiding magistrate Jo Sunner told Markham Bright to sort out his life.
He said: “The energy you spend doing wrong, why don’t you spend it doing right.”