A NIGHTCLUB thug has been ordered to pay his victim £500 compensation after flattening him with a single punch in a drunken attack.
Shane Garner was staying in Exmouth while working on the new John Lewis store in Exeter when he went to the Bar Number Nine club with a work colleague.
He was spotted by CCTV cameras downing shots shortly before he intervened in a minor argument between two other men and lashed out at a complete stranger.
Victim Toby Bamsey was knocked out for eight minutes, needed six stitches in a face wound, and had to take two days off work because of his injuries.
Garner fled the scene but security cameras showed him going out of the club and straight into the adjoining Bank pub where he was arrested, Exeter Crown Court was told.
Garner, aged 31, of Newbury Road, Laindon, near Basildon, admitted causing actual bodily harm and was jailed for six months, suspended for 18 months, ordered to do 80 hours community work and pay £500 compensation and £350 costs.
Judge Erik Salomonsen told him: "You struck a single blow which rendered your victim unconscious for eight minutes. The consequences can be catastrophic."