METRIC martyr and proud father Steven Thoburn made a sly dig at his sworn political enemies last night - with a birth announcement.

The Sunderland greengrocer, who along with three other market traders last month lost a High Court bid to overturn a ruling against their criminal convictions for selling in imperial measures, sent word of the arrival of his son, Jay Steven, to the media, with a pointed reference to his son's weight - 3,790 grams.

"As probably 99 per cent of you out there are now scratching your heads as to whether the baby was the size of a small tomato or a three-weeks premature hippopotamus, if we had said 8lb 5oz then everyone would have understood," the statement from Mr Thoburn and his wife, Leigh, read. They said it highlighted "the absurdity of the prosecution and criminalising of honest, hard-working men for using a system of measurement that we all know and understand".

Mother and baby are doing well, said the Thoburns. "The proud father is glad of the distraction from the high profile trader he has become."

The traders have taken their fight to the House of Lords and should learn within weeks whether they can make a final bid to reverse the convictions.

Meanwhile, fundraising efforts to offset the legal costs of their lengthy battle go on.

* The news came amid reports that the European standards body hopes to come up soon with a uniform system across Europe for clothes sizes - measured in centimetres