Oasis singer loses teeth and faces jail after 'drunken fight with German police'

Three members of the band Oasis were bailed for 250,000 euros (£160,000) yesterday for provoking a nightclub brawl in which Liam Gallagher allegedly "stuck the boot" into a police officer.

Twenty armed officers were called after a fight broke out between the band and a group of Italians at the five-star Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich.

As one policeman struggled on the floor to put handcuffs on one of the men, an "extremely drunk" Liam Gallagher rushed up and kicked the officer in the chest "with all his force", the police said.

Several officers then struggled to arrest Gallagher, who lost two teeth and received facial injuries in the fight shortly after 2am on Sunday. Two other band members were taken to hospital for treatment and a security guard had to be admitted to a clinic but was later discharged.

Police arrested Gallagher, Alan White, the drummer, Phil Smith, the tour DJ, and two security staff for assault, criminal damage, resisting arrest and breach of the peace. They spent 12 hours in a police station, forcing their management to cancel at the last minute the Munich date of their current European tour. A second concert scheduled for Hamburg last night also had to be postponed because Gallagher spent much of the day receiving emergency dental work. Under German law, he could have been given two years in jail for the offence.

A spokesman for Munich police, Christoph Reichenbach, said the trouble had started when the band members, who were guests at the hotel with their entourage, began fighting among themselves. One of them was shoved and fell onto a table that was occupied by five Italians, at which point "all hell broke loose".

The band's security and hotel staff struggled to break up the fight and order was finally restored when the police arrived minutes later.

Mr Reichenbach said: "This is probably the finest hotel in the city with normally very respectable guests and patrons. But the band's behaviour on Saturday night to Sunday morning made it seem more like a zoo. They were all totally drunk. We will continue our investigations but we consider the level of bail shows how seriously we take the matter." Liam Gallagher, who is 30, has been portrayed as a more mellow man since he met his girlfriend, the All Saints singer Nicole Appleton. But the latest allegations may confound the image of a reformed man.

In 1996, he was cautioned for possession of cocaine when he was found with the drug after a music awards party. A year later he was cautioned again after a fight with a cyclist in north London.

In 1998, Gallagher was arrested and questioned after a scuffle with a photographer but no charges were brought. And in August, a number of shows had to be postponed after Noel Gallagher, his guitarist brother, Andy Bell, the bass player and Jay Darlington, the keyboard player, were injured in a head-on car crash in the United States.

A statement for Oasis said yesterday: "Several members of Oasis and their entourage were the victims of an unprovoked attack by a group of youths in a Munich club."