A MAN who punched a woman so hard that her teeth cut through her lip has been cleared of unlawful wounding.

A jury at Teesside Crown Court also found Stephen Worthy not guilty of assaulting the girl's sister in the same late-night incident.

Mr Worthy, 27, from Hartlepool, said he had acted in self-defence when the sisters started attacking his girlfriend.

He also insisted the women had held him back while a man, Mark Riches, who was with them, came at him and swung a punch.

The jury took nearly four hours to reach majority verdicts on both charges following a two-day trial.

Relatives and friends of Mr Worthy shouted "Yes" as each verdict was announced, and his brother, Matthew, thanked the jury as he left the court.

Robin Turton, prosecuting, told the court the sisters, Victoria and Emma Burniston, had been with friends in 42nd Street, in Hartlepool town centre, on March 7.

They said they left to buy food from a pizza shop and were eating it in a bus shelter when Mr Worthy banged on the glass panel.

Mr Worthy, of Tennyson Avenue, who was with his girlfriend, encountered the group again at about 2am when he was alleged to have said to Victoria: "Have you been looking at our lass?"

Mr Turton said he pushed her several times before the Mr Riches intervened, and he was knocked to the ground.

Mr Worthy then attacked Victoria, a 22-year-old teacher, and left her scarred for life, and her 19-year-old sister, who suffered a cut on her nose and a black eye.

Judge George Moorhouse said the case had been difficult because of the defence's case of self-defence.