A CRAVEN League soccer player who head-butted the referee, knocking his teeth out, in a match in October, has been given a six-month jail term at Burnley Crown Court.

Barrowford United player Lee Dinsdale, 24, of Lee Street, Barrowford admitted assault causing actual bodily harm against Mr Peter Owen, a referee of six years standing, during a Craven League Division Two game between Barrowford United and Skipton LMS Reserves at Bullholme Playing Fields.

Mr Martin Hackett, defending, said Dinsdale acted stupidly in a split second of madness and knew he was in danger of losing his liberty. Referees needed fully protecting in such situations and the defendant fully understood that. After the match, he had apologised to Mr Owen and offered to pay for any treatment he might need.

Mr Hackett said Dinsdale was otherwise a perfectly law-abiding young man and, but for the moment's madness, he would never have appeared before this or any other court. The defendant had always been in full-time work and had been employed by a local firm for the last three years.

Referee Owen said that he was shocked to learn that Dinsdale had been sent to prison, adding that the news gave him no pleasure.

But he went on: "I feel sorry for the mess he has left behind, but he left me in a mess as well. Something just touched a nerve with him and he just lost it."

Father of two Mr Owen, 47, has had to pay out £2,000 for dental treatment after Dinsdale struck three minutes from the end of the game last October, when his side were 3-0 ahead.

Mr Owen, a general manager for a building materials distributor, was left with two teeth and two crowns missing and pouring with blood after Dinsdale shouted not to tell him to shut up and butted him. Mr Owen had just given a penalty to visitors.

Despite needing dental treatment, referee Owen was back in action a week later, claiming that the "out of the blue" assault had not put him off the game. A keen footballer all his life, he said he was not going to let Dinsdale spoil his pleasure, although he felt a younger, less experienced referee might never have returned to the game.

Barnoldswick-based Mr Owen added he had never been subjected to violence before in his years in the game and had refereed matches involving Dinsdale before, without any problems.

Sentencing the defendant, now banned from playing for life by the Lancashire Football Association, Judge David Pirie said no course other than custody could be justified.

He said referees like Mr Owen gave of their time for little or no reward and were entitled to be protected from people like Dinsdale, who maybe briefly lost their temper.

Commenting on the case, Mr Peter Marsden, Secretary of the Craven & District League, said: "Once again, this is a sharp reminder to footballers everywhere that they simply cannot behave in this way and think that they are beyond the law because they are on a sport pitch.

"Apart from the loss of his liberty, Lee Dinsdale's career as a footballer is finished. He has been banned for life by the Lancashire FA and that ban stands in every league in the country. He cannot play the game anywhere now because of this incident.

"Any team giving him a game and being found out will be in serious trouble, with details of the ban being circulated by the Lancashire FA to all other associations in the area."

While Dinsdale's offence was subsequently dealt with by the courts, enquiries into an incident at Barrowford a fortnight earlier, in which another referee was assaulted by a spectator, have failed to identify a culprit, but secretary Marsden is quick to defend the record of the Barrowford club since those dark days.

"A £200 fine, suspended until the end of the season, was imposed on the club after the spectator's attack, but I'm pleased to say that Barrowford United really have taken the message to heart," says Marsden. "Since then, the club has only had a total of two cautions, they have played some very good football in climbing up the league and they are in the League Cup final.

"I realise that there is a risk of inviting a fall from grace by praising the club for the way they have sorted themselves out after these blemishes, but they deserve credit. I'm pleased at the way officials and players have reacted and I look forward to confirming at the end of the season that the £200 penalty has been set aside."