A model soldier has been fined £1,000 for endangering lives.

Paul Jarvis, 18, from Barnaby Close, Marske, broke into a railway signal box near his home and changed signals and points.

Prosecuting solicitor Yvonne Taylor told Teesside Magistrates the teenager, who had been drunk, forced the door of the Longbeck signal box and "while there he decided to see if he could get the (road) barriers to go down. He pressed and tried numerous switches."

While there was no passenger train due, his actions posed a potential threat to workmen on the track, she said.

Even defence lawyer, Simon Nicholls, described his young client's actions as "reckless, foolish and stupid."

Chairman of the Bench Brian Onions told Jarvis: "It's very hard to find anything mitigating in this sort of behaviour."

Jarvis had one week's 'posting' to the Middlesbrough Armed Forces Careers Office after finishing his basic training, last year, as the army considered him "an excellent example to other young people of how they can go from school leaver to successful soldier in a very short period of time."

Mr Nicholls told the Middlesbrough Bench, Jarvis " absolutely adores the army; the only thing he ever wanted to do. From leaving school, he went straight in. He feels he has let his family down, let himself down but he also feels as though he has let the army down as well; that he has brought himself and his regiment into disrepute."

Jarvis pleaded guilty to an offence under the 1861 offences Against the Person Act of endangering the safety of passengers on the railway.

He told the court he had been attacked by a gang of youths and had first tried to hide in an outhouse but after being bitten by a dog had sought refuge in the signal box. He was ordered to pay £60 costs.

*His Lieutenant, Chris Jelf, was caught and stopped by police travelling at 97 mph in his 1.2 Nova on the A1m near Leeds, while bringing Jarvis from the Light Dragoon barracks at Deerham, Norfolk, to attend court at Middlesbrough.