A POLICE officer who was convicted of attacking two young prisoners has walked free from court after he launched a legal challenge.

PC Paul Ions saw his two convictions for assault quashed by Judge Tony Briggs, who upheld his appeal heard at Teesside Crown Court.

The 29-year-old officer, of Ingleby Barwick, near Stockton, was jailed for four months in November after magistrates found him guilty of kicking and punching teenager Adnan Asif and striking Paul Longstaff in the face.

He was immediately bailed after launching an appeal.

Last night, Cleveland Police, which suspended PC Ions from his post at Stockton, said it would be reviewing its decision.

PC Ions, a police officer since March 2000, denied attacking 19-year-old Mr Asif, who was arrested following a disturbance in Stockton on September 27, 2003.

The appeal hearing heard evidence from PC Sarah Longmire, who said she heard PC Ions tell a fellow officer: "Hold his head while I punch him"

She also said she saw him swing a football-style kick at Mr Asif.

But she admitted she failed to write it in her notebook and only mentioned it months later when she was quizzed by officers from Cleveland Police's professional standards unit.

PC Ions said he wholeheartedly believed that PC Longmire had an "axe to grind against him" after he had previously criticised her.

He described how Mr Asif had struggled as officers attempted to get him out of a police van, at Stockton police station, and had then fallen to the ground where he was flailing his arms and legs.

Asked about the kick by his barrister, Simon Crossley, he said: "I placed the sole of my right boot into the base of his back and applied pressure, which had the desired effect of rolling him over so we could get control of him."

PC Ions was also accused of hitting 23-year-old Paul Longstaff, even though he was already being restrained by fellow officers, in an incident at Hartlepool police station, on October 12, 2003.

He was said to have lost his temper after being struck by a drunken Mr Longstaff, but PC Ions, who was captured on security camera film, claimed he was under attack and was defending himself.

Judge Briggs said yesterday that the video footage did not support the prosecution's claim that PC Ions had hit him in anger or retaliation.

He said: "Considering all the circumstances, we the justices are not in a position to say we are sure that the only reason he delivered the blow was in retaliation, having been assaulted earlier."

Turning to Adnan Asif, he said that he was not an impressive witness, and had the attack on him been as the respondents suggested his relatively minor injuries would have been much worse.

The judge described how officers' accounts of the incident differed, and it was not "just or right" to prefer one version of events to another.

PC Ions, who was embraced by tearful relatives, declined to comment after hearing the verdict.

Sergeant Chris Pendlington, a spokesman for the Cleveland branch of the Police Federation, which supported PC Ions' appeal, said it would make a statement once the outcome of the internal force review was known