Two friends involved in a brawl with an off-duty police officer on a night out in Bradford today demanded action be taken against him.

The pair, who admitted their part in the fracas, were both sentenced to carry out community punishment orders by Bradford magistrates yesterday.

But Nicholas Leadbeater, mitigating, told the court how police officer Richard McFarlane "threw the first punch" in a taxi queue outside Queens Hall in Bradford city centre.

Adrian McNulty and Joanne Bryant pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against the officer following the incident.

Speaking on behalf of Bryant, 21, and McNulty, 20, after the case, Mr Leadbeater said: "Both Miss Bryant and Mr McNulty are disappointed that an off-duty serving police officer behaved in the way that he did."

The court heard how after leaving the Queens Hall in the city centre after a night out the pair joined the busy taxi queue outside the nightspot on December 21 last year.

Prosecuting Jayne Worrall told the court how McFarlane was drunk and was acting aggressively. "It would appear that at some point Miss Bryant was hit in the face," she said.

Miss Worrall said McNulty and another man went to Bryant's defence and McNulty punched Mr McFarlane.

"He McNulty punched him twice and as he went down to the floor he kicked him in the back," she said. "This was going beyond self-defence."

The court then heard how Bryant got up from the floor and kicked the officer in the face. Mr McFarlane received injuries to his head, neck and back after the attack.

But Mr Leadbeater, said although Bryant, of Hall Road, Shipley, and McNulty, of Mayfield Drive, Sandbeds, Keighley, regretted their actions, Mr McFarlane was "acting like a hooligan" on the night in question.

McNulty was ordered to serve a community punishment order of 60 hours and Bryant was ordered to serve 40 hours. Both must be completed in the next 12 months.

Both were also ordered to pay £60 prosecution costs each.

After the hearing a police spokesman said: "There has been an internal disciplinary hearing into the matter which has now been concluded."