A MENTALLY ill man threw a chair across a pub, striking a drinker on the forehead, after failing to take his medication.

Michael Pickles was sentenced to a curfew and unpaid work yesterday at Bolton Crown Court.

Adam Lodge, prosecuting, told how Laurence Giles was enjoying an evening in Yates bar on Bradshawgate with a friend in January.

Pickles, aged 38, of Ivanhoe Street, Bolton, was sat at a nearby table. Then at 8pm Pickles stood up and, without warning, threw the chair across the room, hitting Mr Giles on the forehead before stating “that’s for two years ago”

before running out of the pub.

Mr Giles needed hospital treatment to glue a six centimetre and one centimetre cut and the court was told since then he has suffered migraines.

Peter Cunliffe, defending, said Pickles, who pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm, suffered from a mental illness and had been trying to manage without his medication.

“He thought people were talking about him and he had to get out of the bar. He was not aiming at anyone in particular,” he said, adding that since the incident Pickles has stayed indoors.

Judge Elliot Knopf sentenced Pickles to do 80 hours unpaid work and be subject to an electronically tagged curfew from 8pm to 6am for five months.

“Clearly what happened to this man was an appalling act on your part,” he added