A Pop Idol reject, who challenged judge Pete Waterman to a fight on the television show, smashed a man's eye socket in a drunken row, a Court heard.

At an earlier hearing Anthony Shaw, 28, of Emm Lane, Heaton, had admitted assaulting Philip Brockett after leaving Kirby's bar in Baildon in November last year.

Shaw was sentenced to 200 hours community punishment after the judge said he could have handed out a jail term.

Millions of TV viewers saw Shaw offer to fight Pete Waterman during auditions of the show last year where teenager Gareth Gates was the eventual runner-up.

Prosecutor Pankaj Madan told Bradford Crown Court that on the night of the assault on Mr Brockett, Shaw had earlier been in a row with another man.

Mr Madan said: "The defendant was very heavily in drink. The defendant became more aggressive and at first said he wanted to fight the complainant then apologised, telling him: 'Sorry, I respect, you'."

Later Shaw's girlfriend, Amy Chester, left the pub. A group of drinkers who did not approve of her relationship with Shaw became concerned for her, thinking the couple had left together.

Mr Brockett and some friends went looking for her and that was when Shaw punched him, said Mr Madan.

He went to hospital two days after the attack telling doctors that when he blew his nose he felt as though his eye would pop out. They found a fractured eye socket and put him on antibiotics.

Simon Myers, mitigating for Shaw, said at the time of the offence the defendant was having a relationship with Miss Chester.

"There was considerable animosity on the part of her father and brother and Mr Brockett's brothers to what they thought was an inappropriate relationship with a man ten years her senior," he said.

"At one point seven or eight of them left the pub looking for Mr Shaw."

He said his client should have walked away from the trouble and his behaviour had been disgraceful. He added that Shaw was pursuing a career in singing and entertaining and was not used to drinking as much as he had been on the night of the assault.

Sentencing Shaw, Judge Geoff Kamil, told him he could have given him a jail sentence of between nine and 12 months for violent street disorder. Instead, he gave him credit for his guilty plea and relatively good previous record.

"I make it absolutely clear to you that the way of dealing with people involved in street violence in this city is a custodial sentence," he said.

"If I did you could little argue. But the complainant was also drinking with a number of other people and went looking for you for what they believed you may have been involved with.

"I have stepped back from a custodial sentence to give you a community punishment order of 200 hours."