A MOTHER has told of her eight-month nightmare facing a prison sentence after injuring one of a group of five youths giving her son a "horrible beating."

Samantha Firth-Corner, 43, said she stepped in to save her eldest son, Daniel, from a teenage gang by picking up a rock to scare them off.

In the melee a boy of 15, who admitted to drinking eight cans of cider that night, was hit in the face with the stone, chipping his two front teeth.

Mrs Firth-Corner was arrested, charged and brought to trial for assault causing actual bodily harm, an offence which can carry a prison sentence of five years.

She spent eight months awaiting a trial and was acquitted at the end of a three day hearing after just one hour of deliberation by a jury who heard her say she was defending her son, telling them: "I'm a mum, that's my job."

After the case, nine of the 12 jurors were so emotional they approached her outside court and wished her well, one of them even offering her a hug.

Mrs Firth-Corner, a tutor with the Unite trade union, has campaigned successfully to save her threatened local library and allotments in the historic Yorkshire Dales market town of Bedale and has never been in trouble with the law before.

Yesterday her friends questioned why the mother-of-three was ever brought to trial at all, although she was reluctant to talk about her ordeal.

At the family's neat semi on a quiet estate, she said: "It has been a horrible time for me and my family. For eight months I've dealt with the very real possibility that I could go to jail, something that I'd have considered unthinkable, it's been like a nightmare.

"But my thoughts right now are 'least said, soonest mended' and I'd like to put the whole thing behind me and get my life back to where it was before all this happened.

"I wish the prosecution had never been brought, I'm not sure why it was, but I'm so glad that common sense has eventually prevailed."

A friend said: " It's madness that Samantha found herself in court, she has been terrified of what might happen to her and had convinced herself she was going to prison.

"Even the police seemed to be on her side but the Crown Prosecution Service decided to take the case to trial."

On her acquittal at Teesside Crown Court Mrs Firth-Corner sobbed and thanked the jury as she left the dock, then hugged her partner in the public gallery.

Mrs Firth-Corner, of Oak Tree Road, Bedale, is 5ft 5ins, while the teenager is close to 6ft, the jury heard in the trial.

She said: "I just wanted to stop them attacking. I wanted to protect my son. I'm a mum, that's my job."

The prosecution case was that Mrs Firth-Corner and her son had gone to the house looking for trouble last May, and she attacked the teenager after he asked: "What's your problem."