A man has been cleared of punching and kicking a 15-year-old boy in the head as he lay on the ground after a gang attacked him for cigarettes and food.

David Regan, 21, was accused of attacking the youth as he made his way home from a chip shop, in Hebburn, South Tyneside, with friends, in September last year.

After legal submissions, Judge Beatrice Bolton ordered the jury to find him not guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Regan, of Kipling Avenue, Hebburn, denied the charge.