A STUDENT who punched and kicked a disabled teenager was given a six-month conditional discharge by magistrates yesterday.

Jonathan Wilkinson, 18, attacked cerebral palsy sufferer Christopher Buck, also 18, after he approached him outside Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, in Darlington.

James Thomas, prosecuting, told South Durham Magistrates' Court that the pair had been friends but Mr Buck had been avoiding Wilkinson, of Chapel Street, Middleton St George, near Darlington, after hearing he wanted a fight.

On October 21, Mr Buck spotted Wilkinson, who admitted assault causing actual bodily harm and failing to surrender to bail, and decided to speak to him.

"Mr Buck asked him if he was going to knock him out, at which point he describes that he was punched on the nose. He was then punched five or six times which caused him to fall to the ground," said Mr Thomas.

"He says he felt four kicks in the region of the back of his head."

A workman intervened and Mr Buck, a student at Darlington College of Technology, went to the Memorial Hospital where he was treated for minor injuries.

Graham Hunsley, mitigating, said Wilkinson, who has been excluded from Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form since the assault, acted in self-defence after Mr Buck attacked him.

But he admitted he "went beyond that because he struck him again and again".

Wilkinson was ordered to pay £25 compensation to his victim, plus £25 costs.