A MAN who picked up a chair to defend himself in a Deeside pub brawl has been banned from licensed premises.

Christopher Yale was captured on CCTV holding a chair at the Central Hotel in Shotton after two other men brandished an axe and a knife.

Judge Rhys Rowlands handed Yale a community sentence for his part in the trouble and told him: “You weren’t the prime mover and you didn’t have a weapon, although at one point you did pick up a chair.

“It is said you were frightened, but you don’t appear to be frightened in that CCTV footage.

"You appear to be enjoying what is going on.”

Barrister Karl Scholz, prosecuting, told Mold Crown Court that Yale held up the chair to “counteract” the threat posed by the other men, whose weapons were found the next day hidden in a toilet and behind a radiator.

Yale, 27, of Kent Road, Connah’s Quay, admitted threatening behaviour on January 22.

Barrister Andrew Green, for Yale, said: “He [Yale] is very sorry for his actions. There were two big men, one with an axe and the other had a knife.

“He made a bad choice and should not have gone back into the pub as he did.

"He was afraid for his personal safety.”

The judge fined Yale £250 and told him to complete 30 days of a rehabilitation activity, while the judge ordered him to stay out of all licensed premises for a year.