By
Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:33 PM on 29th December 2011
A man convicted over a drunken nightclub brawl has been released from his tag for a day – to go for a night out on New Year’s Eve.
Jason Randall will be seeing in the New Year at the same chain, Oceana, where bouncers found him in a boozy punch-up in September 2010, with the blessing of the criminal justice system.
He claims he persuaded Staines Magistrates Court to allow him to take the tag off so he won’t lose money on a trip to Cardiff with friends for the celebration.
Hitting the town: Jason Randall says despite being convicted of fighting in a nightclub, the court has agreed to let him go clubbing in Cardiff on New Year’s Eve
The 21-year-old, from Ashford, Surrey, could not believe it when magistrates granted him his night of freedom and revealed he had never expected them to approve his request.
He said: ‘I said I had already booked in advance about three weeks beforehand and really I didn’t have to explain myself.
‘They asked why and I said I was going out with friends to a club.
‘They asked what I was originally sentenced for and it was for fighting in a nightclub.’
‘I’ve told my friends I’ll be able to come – they laughed at first and said “you lucky sod”.
‘I thought I’d try it but I wasn’t expecting to be allowed.’
Allowed out: Jason will be heading to Cardiff for New Year’s Eve, which he says is the night where there are ‘fights everywhere’
The CPS or probation office could not confirm the reveller’s claims.
Mr Randall says the alleged decision, on December 22, has made him lose faith in the justice system.
‘What’s the point of giving you a tag if they are not going to stick to it – it’s a waste of time,’ he said.
‘I don’t have confidence in the criminal justice system after this.
‘I got arrested for a fight at a nightclub, after a while they put me on a tag and then they are letting me out on New Year’s Eve – the biggest night of the year where there’s fights everywhere.’
Randall was caught up in violence at a branch of Oceana, in Kingston-upon-Thames, after he saw someone arguing with one of his friends.
He says initially he tried to break up the skirmish but after being dragged to floor by one of the group admits he lashed out and struck the man.
Security guards at the popular venue soon descended on the brawl and he was arrested.
The sales assistant admitted a single count of common assault at the first available opportunity at Kingston Magistrates’ Court, where he was sentenced to 100 hours community service and fined £210.
The tag was added to his sentence after he missed two days of the community order and the length of the unpaid work was extended by 50 hours at the same time.
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