A WORCESTER college student bit a civilian worker at the city's police station after being arrested, a court heard.

Karl Bicknell, aged 39, was found drunk in a private garden at Callow End, near Worcester, but refused to leave.

He was taken into custody but sank his teeth into Michael Burrows' wrist during a check on his waistband.

He also tried to bite an officer, prosecutor Malcolm Parkes told Worcester Crown Court.

Philosophy and history student Bicknell, of Wheatfield Court Estate, Callow End, pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm.

Judge David McEvoy QC remanded him in custody. He will be sentenced next week.

The court heard that the defendant had a record dating back to 1982 for violence, drunkeness and criminal damage.

He attacked a man in a night shelter and had kicked a woman police officer at Foregate Street station after getting onto the track.

Bicknell had gone through a difficult childhood, being abandoned at the age of three, said Matthew Brook, defending.

Explaining the bite on September 13, last year, he said: "He was just drunk. When approached by figures of authority he felt threatened. He was a man acting in aggressive self-defence."

Bicknell's alcohol problems began in 1997, when he was evicted while studying in London.

He had abused drink but then found himself a home and enrolled at a Worcester college where he found his studies very therapeutic.

Mr Brook said he felt he had let himself down by the offence. He now needed the help of the probation service.