A Winchester student says he is angry and hurt after being refused entry to a city nightspots because of his headgear.

Amardeep Singh Sandhu (19), a Sikh, was wearing a cotton putka over his hair when he was turned away from Moloko's, on his first visit to the bar in The Square, two weeks ago.

The first-year screen production student at King Alfred's College said he and two friends, Robin Humber (20) and Rick Lyddy (19) arrived at the venue after going to a pub at around 10pm on Friday, May 28th.

"We were queuing for a while and then the bouncer pointed to the top of my head and asked if my putka was for religious reasons."

After Amardeep told him it was, the doorman said the bar had had problems with people wearing headgear such as baseball caps and they had found it difficult to differentiate between religion and fashion.

He refused to let the student into the bar saying the management had issued a blanket ban on anyone wearing any kind of hats.

After initially thinking the bouncer was joking, he realised he wasn't, and had to leave the queue. "I was hurt and embarrassed. It's never happened before," he said.

His friend, Robin, said: "It was shocking. We thought they were having a laugh. There's a difference between a baseball cap and religion

"It's not casual wear," added Amardeep, from Farnborough, who was born in England. He said he felt the incident was a form of discrimination and had left him angry and wanting an explanation from Moloko's.

"The bouncers should be educated to tell the difference between hats for religion and those that aren't," said Amardeep, who said he had been going to bars and clubs in Southampton and Winchester since he was 18 without any problems.

He also said he wanted to warn others about the bar's policy. "It's not just Sikhs. What about Jews and Muslims? It's a stupid policy and needs changing." he added.

Andrew Kirkonel, of Bell Pope, solicitors, for Moloko's, said that while the management would want to apologise to Mr Sandhu if he had been upset, the rule went across the board and had been invoked for up to a year.

"There's a house rule that there's no headgear. It's got nothing to do with religious convictions, gender, creed or beliefs."

Mr Kirkonel said the strict rule on headgear had been imposed for security reasons and was recommended by the police as general good practice. He said it made using CCTV easier, as they could pick up the faces of troublemakers more easily. From time to time, people get upset, but that is the rule."

Sgt Steve French, in charge of Winchester's city centre, said: "We will always offer safety and security advice to pubs and clubs. But I am unaware of any instruction to any bar not to let people in because they are wearing headgear."

"Our advice would be to exercise common sense. Generally, we advise premises to refuse entry to people wearing headgear that could be used as a weapon, such as crash helmets or headgear that conceals a person's age or identity.

"Many premises now have good quality CCTV systems and we would encourage bars to discourage the wearing of baseball caps so that faces can be easily distinguishable in order to make the identifying of persons committing offences easier. At the end of the day, it is down to the licensee to set their own dress code rules."