FRIGHTENED drinkers barricaded themselves into a pub after a man began battering the walls with a metal dumbbell bar and making threats, a court heard.

Drunken Matthew Aaron Brown was later shot with a Taser gun by police who believed he was carrying a knife.

He had been fighting with another man in the Angel Inn, Topcliffe, Thirsk, North Yorkshire, on the evening of August 1 last year, Teesside Crown Court was told.

As he left he went face-to-face with the other man, receiving a headbutt.

Harry Hadfield, prosecuting, said Brown, 24, then took his shirt off and approached the entrance to the pub with a metal dumbbell bar, striking at a sign and the walls and making violent threats.

Mr Hadfield said those inside had to hold the door to keep Brown out and it was then locked because customers were becoming frightened and mistakenly believed he had a knife.

Brown was seen to chase a man in the pub car park and also jumped in front of a car demanding of the female driver: “What are you looking at?”

He left, but was later woken and arrested at his home by a police firearms team who had received a report of a man waving a knife.

Rod Hunt, mitigating, said Brown, of Winn Lane, Topcliffe, was shot with a Taser on his arrest.

Mr Hunt said the defendant needed to “dry out” and would lose control when he got drunk.

Judge Brian Forster said Brown, who admitted affray, had acted in an outrageous manner and put fear into the people inside the pub.

The judge said he accepted Brown was a different man when sober, but said there was “no way” he could avoid a custodial sentence, jailing him for nine months.