A 20-year-old man has been jailed for 14 weeks and banned from the island for five years.

Ethan Luke Dann, who was staying at a hotel at Empress Drive, admitted affray after attacking a man in a taxi.

The court heard that he had moved to the island recently hoping to ’make a fresh start’.

Dann was said to have previously been jailed twice in Darlington, County Durham, in September 2017 and January 2018 before deciding to move here.

Prosecutor Barry Swain told the court how, on Friday July 6 at 9.30pm, Dann was in a group of four men on Broadway in Douglas.

They were said to have followed their victim with one of the group alleged to have made comments to him.

The victim got into a taxi to try to escape the gang but the group were then alleged to have set upon him, with Dann admitting that he had kicked and punched the man.

The taxi driver got out of her car and was also said to have suffered minor injuries while trying to intervene.

The group ran off with the victim fortunately suffering no serious injuries.

Dann was located by police shortly afterwards and was found to have a small amount of cannabis on him.

The victim gave a statement saying punches and kicks had been aimed at him and he had suffered a small cut to his eyelid and a cut lip, with his hip and upper leg also feeling tender.

Defending Dann in court, advocate Stephen Wood conceded an exclusion order banning his client from the island was inevitable and said: ’Regrettably the new and better life Mr Dann planned in the Isle of Man isn’t going to take place.

’His partner is in the UK with their one-month-old son. He came here to better support his son and girlfriend with the intent that they join him once he was established here.

’One of the other defendants may have commenced the initial interaction but he went along with it and accepts he threw punches and kicked out.

’The injuries are of a minor nature. We would ask the court to consider Mr Dann’s age and his realistic attitude.

’He has come to the island in the hope of a fresh start and effectively thrown that away.’

Dann was sentenced to 14 weeks jail for affray and two weeks for cannabis possession, to run concurrently as well as being made the subject of the five-year exclusion order.