A LONG distance walker who stopped off in Carlisle to quench his thirst at a Botchergate bar ended the night by being arrested.

Nicholas Ferguson, 25, who is walking from John O'Groats to Land’s End, found himself making an unwelcome detour to the city’s Durrhanhill Police HQ after he was thown out of the Walkabout bar and became violent.

At the city’s Rickergate court, Ferguson admitted two allegations of assault by beating.

Prosecutor George Shelley said staff had reason to ask the defendant to leave the bar because of his behaviour on evening of May 16.

But once he was through the doors, he began protesting, telling the door staff who were trying to make him leave the bar that he had not finished his drink. 

He said this meant he needed to go back inside so that he could ask for a refund, he said. “He was persistent,” said Mr Shelley.

There was then a struggle as Ferguson tried to get past the a male and female door supervisors, slapping or punching the female to the face. He was then taken to the floor and during the struggle he tried to bite the man’s arm.

The skin was not broken but the man’s arm was bruised.

The court heard that this was the first time that Ferguson, said to be living a nomadic lifestyle and sleeping in a tent during his walk, had ever found himself in trouble with the courts.

He told the court he was in Carlisle because he was part way through the 603 mile walk from John O-Groats to Land's End, and he hopes to to get into the Guinness Book of Records, though what record he hopes to break is not clear.

He suggested that the blow which the prosecution said he delivered to the female door supervisor was in fact the unintended result of his arms flailing during the confrontation with the two door staff.

District Judge John Temperley imposed a £200 fine for the assault on the male door supervisor and a £120 fine for the assault on the female.

Ferguson - who arrived in court in the kilt he was wearing on the night he was arrested - must pay each victim compensation of £50. There was no order for costs due to the defendant having no fixed address.