A two-and-a-half-year-old girl was left unattended by a busy road as her father lay drunk on the steps of East Finchley Tube station.

A passer-by had to stop the child running into the road on February 11 before police came and arrested the man shortly after 6pm. The child was eventually re-united with its mother.

Unemployed Arunas Pavlovsky, 24, of Mount Pleasant, pleaded guilty to being drunk in charge of a child at Hendon Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Pavlovsky told the court he got drunk at a friend's house before going to the station.

He said he was very sorry and promised not to do it again.

Magistrates gave him a conditional discharge for 12 months and ordered him to pay £25 costs.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.