A GANG of men left a 50-year-old man unconscious in the street with a broken cheekbone, apparently in a dispute after he kind-heartedly bought a drink for a woman in a town centre pub.

Police said the gang of four or five men cornered the local man in St Mary’s Street and attacked him between 2.30am-3am on Saturday.

He was on his way home from the Black Horse, in New Road, where earlier in the evening staff had thrown a woman out of the pub for being abusive towards the man, who is a regular there.

Dale Carter, who has been the landlord of the Black Horse since April 2015, said: “He had bought the woman a drink because he felt sorry for her, and she became quite abusive and started calling him all sorts of names.

“In the end we had to remove her from the pub and she hung around outside and when we closed the pub.

“He left and they had a disagreement outside. That was the last I knew about it. We are a peaceful pub and we do our best to resolve things quickly.”

“We have seen her in the pub a few times but we have never had to remove her before.

“Apparently she is on the Pub Watch list and had I known that I wouldn’t have allowed her in.

“However, the police are still trying to find someone to chair Pub Watch and we haven’t had an email since we moved here.”

Other landlords in the town said they were equally in the dark about the current state of the Pubwatch scheme, with one telling the Gazette they have not had a list of banned people for months.

Now police say they are working with the Black Horse and the community to trace the attackers, who appear to have followed their victim through Chippenham town centre before pouncing on him in the quiet St Mary Street. Once the man regained consciousness, he went to the police station and asked them to call an ambulance.

Det Con Rob Goacher said: “The man was knocked unconscious and sustained a fractured cheekbone as a result of the attack. He attended the Royal United Hospital in Bath for treatment.

“We would like to appeal for any witnesses to the incident.

“It happened in the early hours of Saturday morning and there would have been people in the area heading home from a night out.

“Did you see or hear anything suspicious? Please get in touch. We are carrying out a robust investigation into this nasty incident and any information from witnesses could be extremely significant.”

Police have CCTV images of the incident, which they say forms a large part of the investigation, and will be released at a later date.

Anyone with information should call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.