POLICE had to use CS gas twice to subdue a man at the centre of a domestic dispute, a court heard.

Leslie Dowson, 31, refused to calm down after being sprayed and continued to resist officers after they handcuffed him.

Police were called to a house in Annandale Crescent, Hartlepool, last December after drunken Dowson went to visit his ex-partner Katy Thompson and her 18-month-old daughter, at 2am.

Christopher Attwooll, prosecuting at Teesside Crown Court, said Miss Thompson fled the house after a row and called police, who arrived to find Dowson holding the toddler and refusing to free her.

Dowson armed himself with a stick to repel the officers, but was overpowered and the child taken from him before the incapacitating spray was used.

Dowson, of Brus Corner, Hartlepool, admitted affray and was given a 170-hour community punishment order and told to continue with a similar order imposed for earlier offences.

Judge Les Spittle warned Dowson he would be jailed if he commited further crimes in the next year-and-a-half.

Paul Cross, mitigating, said Dowson was addressing his alcohol problem, and that he and Miss Thompson were hoping to patch up their relationship. Miss Thompson wrote to the judge to say she wanted kidnap and false imprisonment charges relating to her and the child to be dropped.