A champion mouse breeder who was tormented for months by yobs finally snapped when he spotted someone stealing his pears, a court was told today.

Ginger bearded Tim Kniveton blew a fuse after teenage tearaways threw eggs at his farmhouse home, damaged fencing and pinched his fruit.

Dressed in khaki green shorts he hid in ambush for his 14-year-old paperboys who he suspected were part of the gang.

Prosecutor Stephen Duffield told Teesside Crown Court how 59-year-old Kniveton had set a trap on two separate days.

A neighbour, solicitor John Dobson, told police that he was driving his silver Mercedes when he came upon the retired tree surgeon with one of the lads.

Kniveton had blood on his shorts, forehead and the backs of his hands. When asked what was happening he said: "I'm sick.

"They've been pinching my produce, damaging my fence and threw eggs at the house.

"I've told the police and nothing happened and this morning I've ambushed them."

He was holding a 12-inch long bar and he added: "I've took this off them this morning."

The teenager, who was treated in hospital for cuts and bruises, told staff that Kniveton punched him in the face several times.

Mr Duffield said the mouseman had leapt into action a few days earlier when he spotted a boy taking some pears from a tree in his garden.

He chased the youngster, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and gave him a hiding.

The lad did not seek medical treatment for his injuries.

Kniveton, who won the Crufts show of the mouse world at Doncaster with a chocolate coloured mouse, replied "No comment" when he was seen by police.

He moved to South Loftus Farm in retirement for a quiet life but he was a vulnerable target for yobs from nearby Loftus, East Cleveland.

John Gillette, defending, said: "He was subjected to long torment and he believed the victims were part of a larger group who were responsible.

"It is not known whether they caused damage in the past. He was not used to that sort of behaviour and there came a point where he snapped and he went too far."

Character witnesses wrote of Kniveton's "normally passive personality", said Mr Gillette adding: "a personality that would not normally resort to anything approaching an act like that unless there had been ongoing pressure."

The judge Recorder Paul Worsley QC told Kniveton: "I am confident that the court will never again see you in the dock and you may go.

"What you did was to act in a wholly unacceptable fashion to two paperboys on two separate occasions who you were satisfied in your mind had been stealing your produce and indulging in some conduct that was provocative.

"This court can understand your frustration at what they did, but likewise the court has to protect youngsters who without the benefit of your wisdom behave in a certain way."

Kniveton was given a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £150 compensation to one of the boys and £50 to the other plus £100 prosecution costs after he pleaded guilty to actual bodily harm assault and assault by beating last August.