A DRUNKEN dad who launched an unprovoked attack on a Latvian man during March summer festival has been given a suspended jail sentence.

Robert Brown approached his victim in West End park and said: “I want to fight you, do you want a challenge?”

He slapped the man across the cheek and said he wanted to fight, because his victim was a migrant worker, Fenland magistrates were told.

“The usual drinking ban had been lifted for the festival in the park,” prosecutor Andrea Fawcett told magistrates today.

Just before 9pm on June 11, a Latvian man and some friends were chatting between the river and the library, when Brown approached the group.

Brown, 32, of Deerfield Road, March, said he had been born in this country and wanted to fight with the man because he was a foreigner, He told the man’s girlfriend to shut up, he hit the Latvian man on the face and argued with one of his Russian friends.

When police arrived, Brown pushed an officer and during a struggle was sprayed with incapacitant.

Brown had earlier admitted a charge of racially aggravated common assault and assaulting a police officer.

Roger Glazebrook, mitigating, told magistrates: “There is a problem with his drinking, he accepts that.

“He knows he has got to turn his life around; he knows he has got to get off the drink.”

Brown had previously drunk 90 units a week, but had not wanted to drink any alcohol over the last two weeks.

Brown also addressed the court: “I want to say sorry for my actions, it was totally out of character,” he said. “It was due to drink, I just want to say I am sorry.”

During the suspended sentence, Brown will be supervised by the probation service and will be given alcohol treatment for six months; the court ordered him to pay �85 costs.