Emmerdale actor Mark Jordon bit pensioner’s face in ‘panic and fear’ in pub fight, court hears

Actor threatened to kill him after beer garden row, pensioner alleges

Mark Jordon got into a fight with pensioner Andrew Potts outside the Farrars Arms pub in Oldham in July 2018 (PA)

Emmerdale star Mark Jordon bit a pensioner’s face in “panic and fear” after he was attacked by him, he told a court.

The actor, who plays Daz Spencer in the soap opera, said he had been attacked by Andrew Potts in the street following a row in a pub beer garden on 1 July 2018.

Mr Potts had earlier testified that Jordon threatened to kill him before he bit his thumb, hand and eyebrow.

The row had started after comments were made about Mr Jordon’s 18-year-old daughter Poppy, Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court heard.

Jordon said Mr Potts punched him in the nose during a row outside the Farrars Arms in Oldham and kicked him in the groin before they both fell to the floor in the road.

He claimed Mr Potts had pulled at his hair and ears, then put his hand inside Jordon’s mouth, “fish hooking” him.

The actor said he bit on the man’s thumb as a “natural reaction” to having Mr Potts’ hand in his mouth.

He said he was then able to get up before Mr Potts fractured his wrist with a kick and the two men fell to the floor again.

In the moment when he bit Mr Potts’ eyebrow, Jordon said he felt “just sheer panic and fear”.

“It looked like he was snarling so I was worried he was maybe going to try to retaliate with a bite,” the actor said. ”I did exactly what he was going to do. It was not planned, regretful and in the moment. It was pure instinct.”

Jordon told the court that Mr Potts had earlier said his daughter was “being a slag” and threatened to upload a video of her to YouTube.

The actor’s fiancée Laura Norton, who plays Kerry Wyatt in Emmerdale, was in the public gallery alongside former co-star Charlie Hardwick as Jordon gave evidence.

Asked by Robert Smith, prosecuting, about CCTV footage of him being held back by his wife as the row broke out in the beer garden, Jordon said: “She was trying to remind me I was on screen the next day.”

Mr Potts’ claim that he had taken cocaine that evening, was “rubbish”, he added.

The actor, who is from Oldham, has denied the charges against him, which include affray, unlawfully wounding of Mr Potts and the assault by beating of Ms O’Neill.

The trial continues.

Agencies contributed to this report