A PUB bouncer subjected a stranger to horrific violence because he wrongly believed he was part of a three-man gang responsible for a baseball bat attack on his brother.

Victim Kieran Sanderson - who had nothing to do with the earlier attack - had his nose broken in four places.

Witnesses who saw the violence meted out by Karl Gorman in Finkle Street, Workington, on July 20, described how the thug "slammed" his victim to the ground and then repeatedly punched his face, leaving him covered in blood.

At Carlisle Crown Court, Gorman, 24, of Harrington Road, Workington, denied intentionally causing Mr Sanderson grievous bodily harm.

But the prosecution accepted his guilty plea to the lesser charge of wounding.

Prosecutor Gerard Rogerson outlined how Mr Sanderson was enjoying a night out with friends when Gorman, working outside Vinnie's Bar, spotted Mr Sanderson over the road.

He immediately attacked him.

Witness Kirsty Dustin said she had been talking to Gorman when his attention was suddenly distracted by somebody across the road.

"He told her he was just going to do something," she later told police.

Mr Rogerson continued: "Without hesitation, he grabbed the young lad by the throat, picked him up in the air, and then slammed him to the ground.

"He then crouched over him with one knee on the pavement and began raining punches on him with his clenched fist to his face."

The female witness was so incensed she tried to intervene, shouting at Gorman.

She said: "I felt bad for the young lad; his face was covered in blood."

The victim told police how after the attack he went to a nearby pub to clean away the blood in a toilet - and as he did this Gorman walked in.

He told Mr Sanderson: "I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else."

Mr Sanderson needed corrective surgery on his nose, and had to be off work for ten days, losing £340.

"I've been through a horrendous ordeal," he told police. He spoke of suffering nightmares, and waking up screaming.

When police interviewed Gorman, he claimed he acted in self-defence.

But in court, defence lawyer Karen Tunnacliffe, said: "His intention was to approach a group where he believed three people had been involved in a burglary and an assault on his brother.

"It had been a baseball bat attack. He had been told that these three people were looking for him and were carrying knives."

She added that Gorman - whose baby son was born six weeks ago and suffers from a rare medical condition that may require hospital treatment - felt genuinely remorseful. What happened was completely out of character, said Mrs Tunnacliffe.

But Judge Peter Davies said he was skeptical about that remorse and told the defendant: "They must have been powerful blows and it's only good fortune that he wasn't more seriously injured."

The judge said he would suspend the 21 month jail term he was imposing - but only because he was needed to help care for his poorly child. Judge Davies also imposed 200 hours of unpaid work, and told Gorman to pay his victim £500 compensation and a £140 victim surcharge.

Gorman has now lost his job as a pub doorman.