A MAN who said he opened the country's first refuge for male domestic violence victims appeared in court on Tuesday and admitted two charges of deception.

Mike Kenny claimed he set up the North-East charity It Does Happen - raising £21m sponsorship in less than three months and receiving 362,473 calls in two months.

However, the 34-year-old former radio presenter pleaded guilty to two charges of deception when he appeared before magistrates in Darlington.

Kenny was arrested in November after The Northern Echo investigated claims that he had set up a £2.4m safe house at a secret Tyneside location.

The court heard that Kenny, of Pixley Dell, Delves Lane, failed to register It Does Happen as a charity.

Jacqueline Gibson, prosecuting, said that despite this, he contacted UK 2 Numbers, a company providing non-regional telephone numbers, and Domaincheck, a web-hosting and server space management firm, purporting to represent a charity. As a result, he received free services from both, worth a total of £139.95.

She said: "He described the organisation newly formed, yet fast becoming a high-profile charity in the United Kingdom.

"However, the organisation had not yet achieved charitable status and he did purport that it was a charity."

Graham Hunsley, mitigating, said Kenny had no experience of running a charity.

He said: "People were beating a path to his door once the Press got hold of it. He was really buoyed up by this and effectively was running before he could walk."

He said Kenny did not benefit personally from the deception, even selling some of his belongings to raise money, and had admitted on his web site that he did not have charity status.

Kenny was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £55 costs.

Kenny made headlines in national and regional newspapers and appeared on several television shows to announce the opening of his safe house.

He said he also planned to open refuges in Yorkshire and the Midlands.