A family party where children as young as four played in a nightclub turned into an alcohol-fuelled 2am brawl that Kingston's police chief described as the worst he had seen “in 29 years of service”.

Scott Moodie, 29, Nathan Peardon, 23, and Scott Nicholls and Jay Beer, both 21, had all been drinking in the Viper Rooms before the fight broke out in the early hours of the morning outside TK Maxx on October 19, Kingston Crown Court heard.

The four men were all originally charged with wounding with intent and inflicting grievous bodily harm when their trial started on May 16.

Those charges were dropped last Friday at Kingston Crown Court. A lesser charge of actual bodily harm (ABH) was put to the group. Only Moodie denied it.

The jury took two and a half hours yesterday to find the men guilty of affray and Moodie also guilty of ABH. Moodie described the night as a “family party” before the fighting broke out.

He said: “We were there for my cousin Darren’s leaving party. He was the manager at the Viper Rooms. I thought that [my family] owned the club to be honest because they worked there.

“I got there about 5pm. It was wicked, there were children there. There were a lot of four and five-year-olds.

“The club was not open to the public then. The children left at about 9pm. I thought it was a private function.”

Moodie added he had been talking with the victims, Frenchmen Sebastian Legendre and Floren Zirah, in the hours before the fight and did not know other members of the public had been allowed into the bar.

CCTV footage of the brawl outside TK Maxx shows four men staggering in the street, throwing off their coats and attacking Mr Legendre and Mr Zirah before brawling among themselves.

When Mr Legendre gave evidence last Tuesday he admitted he could not remember who hit him after drinking six double-vodkas with Red Bull. The fight closed the venue for three days.

At a review called by Kingston police of Viper Rooms' licence, borough commander chief superintendent Glenn Tunstall said: “I have viewed the CCTV and cannot recollect a more violent and sustained assault in my 29 years of service.”

Nicholls, of Richmond Park Road, Beer, of David Twigg Close, Peardon, of School Lane and Moodie, of Hilary Close, Hammersmith, will be sentenced later.