A FORMER sergeant in the Paras who attacked his 15-year-old daughter's drug-dealing boyfriend with a machete walked free from court yesterday.

Judge Peter Bowers handed 44-year-old Lloyd Sargeant a suspended prison sentence and told him: "I can see it is a nightmare any parent would dread ever occurring."

Last night, Sargeant, a former first Gulf War veteran who also served in Northern Ireland and Malaya, told of his relief at being spared jail, but insisted: "There are no winners in this case."

Sargeant was in a pub with his wife, Andrea, when they overheard "lewd" gossip about their daughter and Paul Ryan, 28, who had just been released from a five-year sentence for robbery and conspiracy to supply drugs.

The couple contacted social services and the police but were told there was little they could do. They found their daughter at Ryan's home in Richmond, North Yorkshire, one Sunday afternoon and took the law into their own hands.

Sargeant, a Ministry of Defence guard since leaving the Paras on medical grounds ten years ago, shouted at Ryan that he was "a nonce" and threw him to the floor.

He stood above him with the 12-inch machete yelling: "I'm a f****** squaddie and this is what squaddies do" before smashing the handle into Ryan's face, knocking him unconscious.

Deborah Sherwin, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court how the girl said her 37-year-old mother pushed her against a fish tank and shouted encouragement to her father during the attack.

Sargeant's lawyer Tom Mitchell said: "What is a man or woman supposed to do when faced with the prospect of their 15-year-old, and thereby underage, daughter taking up with an obviously physical relationship with a drug-dealing, thieving, burgling so-and-so like the complainant Ryan?"

Aisha Wadoodi, defending Mrs Sargeant, said the couple had not seen their daughter, who is now 16, since the incident.

Judge Bowers told Sargeant: "Until this day you were, in every sense, an exemplary character.

"What you did this day was, I accept, completely out of character and that's in very sharp contrast to the man your daughter had taken up with, Paul Ryan, who has had 13 court appearances.

"But to attack a man with a machete in his own home merits a custodial sentence. These circumstances are so extraordinary and so unusual they will not occur again. I am going to suspend the sentence.

Sargeant, of Gilling Road, Richmond, was given a 15 months jail sentence suspended for two years after he admitted unlawful wounding. His wife was given a two-year conditional discharge after she admitted threatening words and behaviour. They were ordered to pay £750 costs.

Last night, Sargeant said: "I wouldn't wish what has happened to us on my worst enemy.

"I shouldn't have done what I did but I was just trying to protect my family.

"I fully accept Ryan is a victim but I feel like everyone is. We have lost a daughter so there are no winners - only losers - in this case."