TWO ELLESMERE Port men have admitted causing an affray in Chester city centre in which two victims were injured.
Paul Smith, 23, of Wilkinson Street, Ellesmere Port, and James Statham, 22, of Spunhill Avenue, Great Sutton, denied a joint charge of a serious assault against Owen Sheehan and a minor assault against Richard Leslie Evans.
But both pleaded guilty to a lesser offence of affray which was captured on CCTV in Bell Tower Walk, near the cathedral in the early hours of August 20 last year.
Chester Crown Court heard a review of the footage reveals an alternative explanation for how one of the victims suffered a head injury.
Prosecutor Meirion Lewis-Jones said the victim forcefully hit either a lamppost on metal railing after getting up off the floor having been kicked and punched by the defendants.
Judge Roger Dutton said the subsequent injury ‘might be as a result of being beaten up’.
But Mr Lewis-Jones said: “The prosecution has considered the position carefully and concluded count three is appropriate.”
He said all four participants had been ‘drinking heavily’ and one victim had no memory of the incident.
The men will be sentenced at Chester Crown Court on March 25.
