A FATHER-OF-TWO will spend Christmas behind bars for a drunken late-night attack which has left two brothers afraid to go out.

Paul and Andrew Stevens were kicked and punched during the fracas in Middlesbrough town centre a year-and-a-half ago.

A court heard yesterday that Paul Stevens, 28, needs further surgery on the broken nose he suffered in the attack.

And Judge John Walford was told the emotional scars suffered by the brothers have still to heal.

Craig Nagy, 23, of Bamburgh Drive, Overfields, Middlesbrough, admitted affray and was jailed for six months.

Teesside Crown Court heard that Nagy and a pal started a row with the brothers in Albert Road in the early hours of July 24, last year.

Yvonne Taylor, prosecuting, said the argument started after Nagy insulted 25-year-old Andrew Stevens' girlfriend.

John Gillette, mitigating, urged Judge Walford to impose a suspended sentence, because Nagy had been promised an offshore scaffolding job in the New Year.

But the judge told him: "This sort of behaviour is such that there can only be a custodial sentence to mark its obvious seriousness, to deter you from behaving in this way in the future and to deter others.

"Had I only you to think about, I could have imposed a suspended prison sentence. But given what these two men suffered, and the need for deterrents, I would be failing in my public duty if I were to do anything other than pass an immediate custodial sentence."

He added: "You used violence to at least one of the brothers and, as a result, not only were physical injuries caused, but an inevitable psychological effect such that they both feel unnerved and wary when out in the town centre.

"The problem with drunken violence late at night involving injury is that it unnerves and unsettles and increases the fear of crime."