A MAN who threatened to slice up a family friend "like a fish" during an inexplicable row has walked free from court.

William Hepple grabbed a craft knife after exchanging words with the neighbour and returned to his home in County Durham.

The victim was holding his toddler son in the front garden when Hepple, 59, vowed: "I'm going to gut you like a fish."

Teesside Crown Court heard how nobody seems to have any idea how or why the argument in Dipton, near Stanley, started.

But Hepple - who has many previous convictions, but none for several decades - has since apologised to the victims.

The man had been in the garden of their home with his partner and two children on an afternoon in July last year.

Prosecutor Martin Towers said Hepple turned up with 29-year-old David Monkhouse, who repeated his friend's threats.

Hepple twice told the father-of-two to "get round the corner to sort this out" and repeatedly threatened to "gut" him.

The man said later: "I was shocked and disbelieving he would threaten me with a knife especially when I was holding the baby."

Nigel Soppitt, for Hepple, said: "He can't explain the background. There is no ongoing dispute. There never was.

"It's an odd offence . . . it seems it has arisen quite simply out of nothing. He should know better. He has since apologised."

Hepple, of South Meadows, Dipton, admitted affray and having a bladed article and was given a nine-month suspended prison sentence.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, also imposed a six-month curfew between 9pm and 7am and ordered him to undergo supervision.

Monkhouse, of Sycamore Terrace, Stanley, admitted affray, and was given a three-month curfew over the same hours and a 12-month community order.

His barrister, Liam O'Brien, said he was "led into it" and "behaved somewhat sheepishly" when he realised the extent of it.