A JUDGE has given a man one last chance after hearing how he was beginning to turn his life around.

John Blenkinsop, 20, had his sentence for attacking another man deferred for six months yesterday to give him time to prove he could stay out of trouble.

Blenkinsop was told he had to keep his job, stay crime-free and save £1,500 to pay his victim Richard Stevenson.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox, QC, told the kitchen porter: "If you miss out on any of those three, it's prison - it's as simple as that."

Blenkinsop attacked Mr Stevenson on August 15, last year, because he suspected he had been spreading rumours about him breaking into cars.

Teesside Crown Court was told how the victim suffered a fractured lower jaw.

Blenkinsop, who lived at Huntley Close, Middlesbrough, at the time of the attack, has previous convictions for criminal damage, auto-crime and violence, and was locked up for eight weeks last June for assaulting a shopkeeper.

He was released from the young offenders' institution only weeks before he punched Mr Stevenson - an attack which placed him in breach of a community rehabilitation order and a conditional discharge.

His barrister, Jonathan Walker, told the court that his offending was the result of mixing with the wrong crowd, but he had since moved to the Lake District.

Judge Fox told Blenkinsop: "From your brief custodial sentence last summer, you know what it's like. You must keep that in mind over the next six months."

Blenkinsop admitted causing grievous bodily harm at a hearing at Teesside Magistrates' Court last December, but the case was transferred to crown court for sentencing.