VIOLENCE erupted in a Torquay pub as two men, armed with a spade and a baseball bat, launched a revenge attack over an injured dog, a court has heard.

Exeter Crown Court was told yesterday how the brawl at O'Connors in Plainmoor spilled over into the pub toilet and a nearby shop.

Adam Pearce, of Dundee, and Simon Morton, of Thurlow Road, Torquay, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to affray at the St Marychurch Road pub on November 26 last year.

Both were ordered to carry out 150 hours' unpaid work over the next 12 months.

Judge Graham Cottle warned: "Obviously you can't walk around Torbay armed with a bat and a spade, and if you do that again you will go to prison."

Prosecutor Nigel Wraith said Pearce went into the pub armed with a bat and Morton was carrying a spade.

A fight with pub customers broke out, spilling into the pub toilet and later into a nearby shop.

Mr Wraith said the men were seen attacking a man who was on the ground, and when Pearce left the shop after the assault he threatened staff not to say anything.

Mr Wraith said: "Pearce's dog had been attacked by individuals and he thought the people responsible for hurting the dog were in the pub."

He said none of the victims had come forward to make statements to the police.

Judge Cottle, sentencing the men, said they were essentially of good character and although there was an argument over a dog he did not need to know what it was about.