A MARKET trader being prosecuted for selling only in pounds and ounces faces a ten-week wait to discover his fate after his court case was adjourned.

Steven Thoburn, a father-of-two, is being prosecuted by trading standards officers for using imperial-only scales at his fruit and vegetables stall in Sunderland.

Mr Thoburn said yesterday that the stress of the hearing was taking its toll, but vowed to enjoy a pint of beer now that the initial stages were over.

The hearing has been adjourned until March 1, when both legal teams will return to Sunderland Magistrates' Court to present their closing arguments.

Judge John Morgan will deliver his ruling on April 9.

He said: ''Because of the difficult constitutional issues involved and complexities of the case, I will give my judgement in open court on April 9.''

After the hearing, Mr Thoburn and fellow trader Neil Herron, who himself has been threatened with having his scales seized, said they would be lunching on a 12in pizza and then enjoying a traditional pint of beer.

Mr Thoburn said: ''I just want this out of the way and to get back to work. It has put a strain on my wife having to run the business while I'm here."

Mr Thoburn is being tried under amendments to the 1985 Weights and Measures Act, brought in as a result of Europe's 1994 Units of Measurement Regulation, which came into force on January 1.

Under the law, Britain's traders were told they would have to sell all loose and bulk items such as meat, fruit and vegetables in kilos and grams from that date.

Mr Thoburn, 36, of Sunderland, denies two counts of having imperial-only weighing scales when his stall was raided by trading standards officers last July.

The court heard that Britain was being pulled by Europe towards a total metrication system, which could see the end of such traditional measures as the British pint of beer.

Barrister Michael Shrimpton, representing Mr Thoburn, told the hearing that Europe was intent on converting Britain into a purely metric system.

Butcher David Stephens, from Essex, who had travelled to Sunderland for the hearing, burned a European flag in protest at the laws.

He said: ''This is my own personal protest against the European dictatorship of small businesses in this country with their regulations to stifle our way of life.

''I don't recognise the European flag.'

LOCKED in a bell-shaped glass jar, and kept at a constant temperature and pressure, sits the foundation stone for the metric system of weights.

A cylinder of platinum alloy, stored in a pavilion on the outskirts of Paris, is the standard kilogram - the basis for the weights in shops, schools and laboratories across the world.

But while the kilogram has an airtight precision, the origins of imperial measures were more haphazard.

The basic unit of weight is the grain, based on the weight of a grain of barley.

A pound is made up of 7,000 grains and is split into 16 ounces, although the word ounce means a one twelfth, each weighing 437.5 grains.

The ounce is divided into 16 drams, meaning one dram weighs 27.34375 grains.

But there are also troy pounds, made up of 5,760 grains, wool pounds, weighing 6,992 grains, tower pounds, used for weighing coins at 5,400 grains, and London pounds, of 7,200 grains.

The stone took its name from the rock used to weigh merchandise on a balance and is made up of 14 pounds.

Two stones equal a tod, and eight stones are a hundredweight, with 20 hundredweight equal to a ton. But not to forget the sack, the equivalent of 26 stones.

The fundamental unit of length is the yard, defined by Henry I as the distance from his nose to his outstretched fingertip.

Each yard is divided into three feet and each foot into 12 inches. An inch was originally the width of a man's thumb measured at the base of the nail, but it was redefined as the length of three grains of dry, round barley.

Five-and-a-half yards make a rod, 22 yards make a chain, ten chains make a furlong and eight furlongs make a mile.

But while it may be a little easier to understand, the metric system is not immune to confusion. Changes in surface chemistry mean the standard kilogram is gaining weight and a new standard needs to be found