Single mother Tracey Clark told police she did stupid things when she was drunk, a court heard yesterday.

Peter Scott, prosecuting, told Harrogate magistrates that among Clark's stupid acts had been the theft of a mobile phone while waiting in a queue in a Chinese takeaway in Kings Road, Harrogate.

She had taken it from Alastair Packham's shirt pocket after he and another man had refused Clark's plea to be given money.

Then in another incident, Clark, 21, had attacked a 14-year-old schoolboy in Poplar Grove, Bilton, Harrogate, hitting him over the head with her handbag.

Clark of Knox Lane, Bilton, pleaded guilty to assault and theft and admitted this put her in breach of two conditional discharges imposed within a few days of each other last June for assault and being drunk and disorderly.

Magistrates, who were told by Mr Scott aht in a police interview Clark had said she did stupid things when she had been drinking, backed a plea by her solicitor Geoffrey Boothby not to send her to prison.

Instead she was given a one-year community rehabilitation order with attendance at Harrogate's East Parade Project for alcohol and drugs abusers and ordered to pay £120 costs.

Mr Boothby said Clark, the single mum of a five-year-old boy, had began offending after a major bust up with her mother which resulted in her living in a block of flats where she joined in regular binge drinking sessions.

She could not remember taking the phone and the boy she had assaulted had been bullying her young sisters at school.