TWO bouncers at a Chester nightspot have been jailed for a “sustained assault” on two customers while on duty.

Patrick Kapinga, 24, and Steven Pendlebury, 43, both pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm (ABH) in relation to a brawl outside Off The Wall on April 16 last year.

At Chester Crown Court this afternoon (Monday, October 29) their barristers urged the judge to suspend the inevitable prison sentence.

Pendlebury is a father-of-two with a pregnant partner while Kapinga, who is also in a long-term relationship, is in the final year of a college course in St Helens.

But Judge David O’Mahoney told the defendants their attack was a “breach of a position of trust in the community” and sentenced them to 10 months in custody.

Outlining the case, prosecuting barrister Simon Mintz said the two victims, Ashley Beverley and Jamie Paine, had been on a night out with their girlfriends on Sunday, April 16 last year.

They started in Off The Wall, went to a few more bars, and then decided to return to Off The Wall as they had heard a star of reality TV show Geordie Shore was due to make an appearance.

However, when they reached the venue they were turned away by Pendlebury who deemed at least one of them too drunk to enter.

As they walked away, Mr Beverley aimed comments towards Kapinga before picking up one of the security barriers and shaking it aggressively.

Pendlebury then sprang into action, throwing two quick punches at the man’s face – an act that the prosecution accepted could be seen as self-defence due to a “perceived threat”.

But CCTV footage shows the pair then went on to launch a “sustained assault” on the two victims with Mr Paine punched to the ground and Mr Beverley also ending up on the pavement.

Witnesses, who included a woman on stilts and a man who recorded the incident on his phone, then saw Kapinga punch Mr Paine while he lay on the ground.

He also aimed a kick at Mr Beverley and went on to punch him in the face again while the victim was being held by three other doormen who had come outside to break the fight up.

The two defendants were then taken back inside the bar. They later lost their jobs and had their licences stripped from them after bosses viewed the CCTV footage.

The victims were taken to hospital for treatment. Mr Beverley had sustained a fractured jaw as well as cuts and bruises to his ear, temple, mouth, eye, chest and arm.

Mr Paine had bruising to the back of his head, a swollen nose, bruises above his eye and a split lip, for which he needed stitches.

Philip Astbury, defending Kapinga, stressed there was a degree of provocation and the attack was in no way premeditated.

“What followed was a very ugly and unpleasant incident of public disorder,” he said, to which the judge added: “By people who have licences to be doormen.”

Mr Astbury said his client was a hard-working young man with glowing references who showed “genuine regret and remorse”.

“He was appalled when he watched it [the CCTV],” the barrister said. “He is determined to put this behind him.”

He also told the court Kapinga had previously received a commendation while working as a doorman for coming to the aid of two female police officers who were being attacked.

Mark Le Brocq, defending Pendlebury, said his client had retrained as a forklift truck driver and was working hard to provide for his family.

Despite having previous convictions for assault and affray, he had been out of trouble since receiving a nine-month prison sentence in 2003.

Mr Le Brocq also suggested that Pendlebury, who is “skilled in martial arts”, could have done much more damage to the victims but deliberately restrained himself.

Sentencing the pair Judge O’Mahoney said: “The fact is you were licensed doormen who, whatever the origin of the incident, together went after and attacked two men in public and that attack continued for some time.

“That is a breach of a position of trust in the community for which an immediate custodial sentence can be the only possible outcome.”

Pendlebury, of Plas Newton Lane, Upton, Chester, and Kapinga, of Dobsons Way, St Helens, will spend half of their sentence behind bars and half in the community on licence.