AN immature 20-year-old who joined in a fight between his schoolboy friends and some older youths was yesterday locked up for smashing one of them over the head with a bottle.

Peter Freeman was told by a judge that the level of violence he used during his drunken attack in Bishop Auckland could not be marked with anything other than a custodial sentence.

Judge Peter Armstrong sent unemployed Freeman to a young offenders' institution for six months after he pleased guilty to an assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Jonathan Beadle in May.

The 19-year-old suffered a gash to his scalp when he was hit twice with a beer bottle after Freeman had been summoned to help his friends - aged 13 and 15 - attack Mr Beadle and a pal.

A court heard yesterday that the schoolboys had repeatedly tried to goad the older youths into fighting them, but they refused to get involved in any trouble.

Prosecutor Jenny Haig told Teesside Crown Court that one of the teenagers rang Freeman on his mobile phone and asked him to join them in Edgar Grove.

Freeman, who later told police he had drunk four litres of cheap wine, turned up and attacked Mr Beadle, who was so scared he ran to seek help at a nearby shop.

Dan Cordey, mitigating, accepted Freeman, of Princes Street, Bishop Auckland, had a poor record, but said he had not been in trouble for four years.

"He comes across as a very immature young man," said Mr Cordey. "It is time he grew up and stopped running around getting involved in 13 and 15-year-old's battles in this kind of way."

Judge Armstrong told Freeman: "I'm afraid it is impossible to overlook that sort of offence - it is violence on the street, it is gratuitous and it is drink-fuelled, but that's no excuse at all.

"The public are fed-up with the violence in the streets which is occurring these days when people, and particularly youngsters, are in drink.

"You are going to have to watch yourself in the future, otherwise you are going to find yourself being locked up for longer periods."