A MAN who took the law into his own hands attacked a suspected burglar with a 'bloody great sword' when he confronted him after his partner’s home was targeted.

Christopher Pinchbeck was jailed for a year for the attack which left Mark Bunney with two slash wounds to his head and a fractured skull, after he took the ornamental Samurai sword off his victim.

The 26-year-old had been the victim of a concerted campaign of intimidation by his victim, including the word grass being scratched into the paintwork of his partner’s car.

Teesside Crown Court heard the violence erupted when Pinchbeck came across his victim on Howlbeck Road, Guisborough, on June 26 last year.

Witnesses called the police with one describing the defendant using 'a bloody great sword' during the attack.

Pinchbeck, of Raithwaite Close, Guisborough, pleaded guilty to a charge of affray.

In mitigation, Nigel Soppitt, told the court that the victim, Mark Bunney, had been arrested on two occasions after launching a sustained campaign of intimidation against the defendant and his partner.

He accepted that Pinchbeck had overreacted when he bumped into Bunney but said it was not the actions of a 'vigilante'.

Jailing Pinchbeck for 12 months, Judge Howard Crowson said: "It does seem to me that you were provoked and it was him who brought the weapon to the confrontation."