A Bristol police officer was nearly blinded when a thug hurled a pint glass at her during a pub brawl involving 70 people, a court heard.

PC Henrietta Staveley-Brown was a member of a police emergency response unit called to the Wayfarer pub in Southmead after a fight broke out in February.

But as soon as she stepped through the door a pint glass was hurled at her face – knocking her to the ground and shattering her left eye socket and fracturing her nose.

PC Staveley-Brown needed 26 stitches to her forehead and eyelid.

Damien Gordon, 28, of Lockleaze, denies causing grievous bodily harm with intent to 40-year-old PC Staveley-Brown. He also denies battery against PC Oomesh Danhawoor, who was transporting him to the station after his arrest.

Ian Fenny, prosecuting, told Bristol Crown Court yesterday how a witness reported that Gordon had thrown the glass ''like a baseball pitcher".

He said: "She was struck with such force that she was knocked off her feet and onto her back.

"She was bleeding profusely. She was clearly in shock. She was vomiting."

The fight broke out among 70 people at the Wayfarer, in Pen Park Road, at about 11pm on February 7 this year.

PC Staveley-Brown, known as 'Hen', suffered a deep 13cm laceration cut from the bridge of her nose across her forehead, and another deep laceration on the left side of her eyebrow.

Her nose and her left eye socket had also been fractured.

Mr Fenny showed the jury pictures of the PC's stitched and bruised face taken some days after she had been treated for her injuries.

Gordon was immediately identified by police as the man who threw the glass and he was arrested, the court was told.

But on the way to the police station the court was told that he ''kicked out'' at driver PC Danhawoor so fiercely that he made him lose control of his vehicle.

Mr Fenny added: ''He was taken to a police car and while in the police car, he on three occasions kicked out at a police officer.

''It was with such force that on one occasion the police officer lost control of the police car."

Doctors initially feared that PC Staveley-Brown, a police officer for 16 years, would lose the sight in her left eye, but she has since regained full vision.

Another defendant, Sean Teddy, 32, of Lawrence Weston, yesterday pleaded guilty to the battery of PC Ross Kilcoyne during the same incident in Southmead.

Gordon's trial continues at Bristol Crown Court.