A MAN who head-butted a work colleague on a night out has been ordered to pay him £500 compensation.
James McIntosh knocked Oliver Kingdon to the floor in the Rescue Rooms, in Goldsmith Street, Nottingham, after a row. Mr Kingdon was taken to hospital with a suspected broken nose.
The Experian workers had been for after-work drinks to celebrate a birthday and a colleague leaving on August 24.
But the night ended with McIntosh being arrested.
He appeared at Nottingham Crown Court for sentencing on Tuesday, having been convicted last month of assault causing actual bodily harm.
Judge Michael Stokes QC told him: "One can only draw the conclusion that you had a moment of madness, when you head-butted your colleague.
"It was a pretty dramatic and deliberate head-butt and has caused him some injury to his nose, which appears to be continuing to cause problems."
The court heard the pair's work relationship turned sour in January, when McIntosh sent Mr Kingdon an e-mail when a sale fell through.
On the night of the attack, they were standing opposite each other in a group when an argument began.
McIntosh, 26, of Bishop Street, Eastwood, suddenly and without warning, butted Mr Kingdon. The jury saw CCTV footage of McIntosh putting his hands on Mr Kingdon's shoulders and using his head as a weapon.
Robby Singh, prosecuting, said: "That headbutt caused Oliver Kingdon to go to the floor for a short period of time. When he gets up, he says, the defendant is smiling."
Mr Kingdon now suffered from headaches and a blocked nose, the court heard..
Mr Singh said the pair were still employed by Experian.
"It appears they are both working at the same company and they have been placed quite far apart."
Christopher Geeson said, in mitigation, that the two men had previously sat close together in the same room.
"It's now been resolved," he said. "They now sit further away. They are still in the same room.
"The defendant is ashamed of his actions and he is sorry and exceptionally contrite, which has enabled him to keep his job."
He said that, during the argument in the club, his client felt he was being backed into a corner. "He accepts he shouldn't have done what he did and accepts this may have been assisted by alcohol. He'd had four pints."
McIntosh works flexi-time for Experian and is also a retained firefighter. He and his fiancee have saved £5,000 to get married in Cyprus next September.
The judge concluded that the attack was "wholly out of character" and that McIntosh was a hard-working man.
There was no point in sending him to prison for a "momentary aberration", he said.
Ordering McIntosh to pay compensation and be subject to a community order, with 90 hours of unpaid work, the judge told him: "I'm quite sure you will never do anything like this again."
