A PUB landlord has been cleared of pushing a late drinking customer down a flight of steps.

It took a jury at Bolton Crown Court less than half an hour to find publican Eric Ashton not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to drinker Julian Large.

Mr Large suffered a broken pelvis and wrist after tumbling down the entrance steps to the Rose and Crown pub on Bolton Road, Westhoughton, on September 14 last year.

The prosecution claimed 53-year-old Mr Ashton had deliberately shoved him down the stone steps after Mr Large became drunk and objected to leaving at closing time.

But Mr Ashton told the court that Mr Large had stumbled and fallen down the steps after tripping over a heavy iron stool in the porch, which was being used to prop the front door open.

During the trial, the jury of seven men and five women heard how Mr Large, who lives in Middlesex, had been visiting Westhoughton to help his sister care for her terminally ill husband and their elderly mother.

And on the Saturday evening he went with his great niece and her boyfriend to the Rose and Crown to play pool and have a drink.

But problems began when time was called at 12.30am and Mr Ashton said Mr Large wanted more drinks and was still refusing to leave three quarters of an hour later.

Mr Ashton told the jury how the drinker pushed him in the chest as he tried to usher him out of the bar.

'He appeared aggressive as if to say "who are you telling me to go home,"' said Mr Ashton.

He added that in the porch Mr Large had suddenly turned around and lunged at him and he had pushed back to defend himself, but not hard enough to cause the fall.

The jury accepted his version that Mr Large's injuries had been caused by him flying backwards out of the doorway after stumbling over the stool.