A 34-year old man narrowly escaped jail yesterday after pleading guilty to attacking a DJ while he was on the decks.

The Lancashire Evening Post reports that Gary Robinson rained punches down on the DJ at the none-too-cool sounding nitespot Ingol Labour Club. The DJs crime was getting on the mic to ask Robinson not to carry his beer glass on the dancefloor, but apparently “the music did not help” either.

Now while some may argue that a DJ ever getting on the mic at all is a crime in itself, let alone having a ‘no drinks on the dancefloor’ policy, this is a serious matter.

If DJs end up living in fear of getting battered if they take risks behind the decks then clubland (and, erm, Labour Clubs) will be a much poorer place.

I don’t care if the risks are musical, like DJ Yoda scratching a George Formby record into the mix (he’d take a proper pasting for that round our way) or simply a dangerous flirtation with bad taste shirts (Danny Howells needs to watch his back on that point), DJs need to be free to express themselves without bone-heads in the crowd kicking off.

Sasha walked off when he was hit by a bottle while DJing at Shindig in Newcastle last year, and rightly so. Booing/attacking/throwing bottles of piss etc should be reserved for rubbish bands (who love that kind of thing, and play on as the missiles hail down). Meanwhile a single well targeted punch or projectile delivered towards a DJ could lead to the record scratching off (or the piss-drenched Macbook crashing) and then what are the rest of us going to do?

Agro is about as welcome on our dancefloors as the beer glasses at Ingol Labour Club. Show your DJs some love!