POLICE are seeking the arrest of a man who was cleared of an assault after a trial went ahead in his absence.

Twenty-eight-year-old Allan Brown fled Durham Crown Court earlier this week, prior to the scheduled start of his trial for the alleged attack.

He previously denied a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm.

Recorder Jonathan Aitken ruled that with witnesses all at court ready to give evidence, the trial should go ahead, despite Mr Brown not being present.

A jury was assembled and was simply told that Mr Brown had "absented himself", but that the case would go ahead.

Recorder Aitken described it as "an unusual position", but he asked the jury not to hold his absence against Mr Brown when reaching their verdict, and urged them simply to try the case on the evidence.

The prosecution alleged that Mr Brown became involved in a disturbance involving several women, in a family feud, in Calvert Terrace, Murton, County Durham, on September 11 last year.

He was accused of striking a man in the rival family several times about the head.

Julie Clemitson, prosecuting, said the alleged victim was treated at hospital for his injuries and received stitches to his lips.

When interviewed, Mr Brown told police he raised his fists in what he believed was "reasonable self-defence", as he feared a woman in his group was going to be attacked by the man he struck.

Ms Clemitson said: "It's a bit like self-defence, but he was saying he used force to defend someone else."

In the absence of his client, defence barrister Scott Smith, for Mr Brown, relied on what was said in his interview.

The jury yesterday returned a not guilty verdict on the third day of the trial.

But the court was told that police now want to speak to Mr Brown, of Tamar Street, Easington Lane, near Houghton-le-Spring, over the alleged intimidation of witnesses prior to the start of the trial.