Paddy Doherty gets suspended sentence

Paddy Doherty gets suspended sentence
Paddy Doherty gets suspended sentence (Image credit: Ian West)

Celebrity Big Brother winner Paddy Doherty has received a suspended jail term for his part in a grudge fight in public with another traveller. Doherty, 52, 'fronted up' to Johnny Joyce, 21, when he was challenged to a brawl amid an ongoing feud. Manchester Crown Court heard the former bare-knuckle boxer had brought disapproval from elements of the travelling community when he complained to police in August 2010 that Joyce had attacked him in an earlier incident. Joyce was eventually acquitted of assaulting Doherty, but the latter's appearance in court as a prosecution witness caused 'bad blood' between the two families. Doherty was jogging in Ancoats, Manchester, last June when Joyce came across him. A fight ensued near a retail outlet car park which Doherty got the worse of and culminated with both falling on the floor. Joyce then sank his teeth into Doherty's left ear and bit off the top part of it. Insults were spat at Doherty by Joyce's brother, Douglas, who filmed the tussle on his mobile phone. The footage played in court showed the brawl spilling from the car park outside a PC World store and into the busy main road with cars swerving around the pair. Doherty, formerly of Duchy Road caravan park in Salford, pleaded guilty to affray last month. Doherty was due to give evidence as a victim before the prosecution decided to charge all three men. His sentencing was scheduled on Friday January 6 to keep the feuding factions apart. The Joyce brothers will be sentenced on January 13.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.