A MAN accused of punching a 17-year-old girl told police he would never hit a woman, even if he was drunk.Ipswich Crown Court heard Damien Ely's police interviews following an incident outside Felixstowe Leisure Centre.

A MAN accused of punching a 17-year-old girl told police he would never hit a woman, even if he was drunk.

Ipswich Crown Court heard Damien Ely's police interviews following an incident outside Felixstowe Leisure Centre.

Ely, 21 of Forfar Close, said he never met the teenage girl. "It just would not have happened, even if I was drunk," said Ely.

He said he was confronted by a "fat, bald geezer with a tattoo, who was holding a vodka bottle."

Ely told police: "He and his mates started kicking off, he just came up to me and took a swing at me."

He said was "bundled" onto the beach and beaten up, suffering a cut above his eye and a nosebleed.

Ely told police he did not produce a knife and did not hit a woman in the face with his free hand.

He admitted he had drunk eight pints of beer that day, September 7 last year, and said he remembered the police van arriving and being searched.

During interview he said: "I had a lighter, a baccy tin and a phone on me, I don't think anyone of them would have looked like a knife."

Ely denied causing actual bodily harm and illegally possessing a knife.

The trial continues.