AN impromptu boxing session resulted in a man brandishing a knife and threatening a family having a barbecue.

Jordan Hunt confronted a man who he believed had hurt his younger brother when he stormed round to his house in Grangetown, near Redcar.

The 21-year-old launched a tirade of racial abuse towards the Polish family before pulling the knife from his trousers and thrusting it in their direction, said prosecutor Rachel Masters.

She said Hunt called the man ' a foreign speccy ****' before rounding on the rest of the family, who he used to live next door to, and called them 'Polish *****'.

Police were called and were able to identify Hunt from CCTV and he was later arrested at him home where they also discovered some cannabis.

Teesside Crown Court heard Hunt, of Essex Avenue, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty to possession of an offensive weapon, racially aggravated common assault, racially aggravated threatening behaviour and possession of cannabis following the incident in May.

His barrister John Nixon urged the judge to pass a suspended sentence saying it was a short lived incident and he thought he was protecting his brother who came off second best in the boxing session.

He said: "He had only just turned 21 a few days before the commission of this offence; he is a young man who is potentially immature for his years.

"There was a complete acceptance by him that the custodial threshold has been crossed by all of these offences today."

Jailing him for 12 months, Judge Deborah Sherwin said custody was the only option for brandishing the 'fearsome' weapon.

"During the course of this incident you spat on his mother causing her to go inside and wash; that is a particularly unpleasant part of this incident as nobody should have to put up with being spat upon," she said.

"You then pulled out a knife, it was a fearsome weapon with a serrated edge on one side, the family must have been terrified when you produced it and started waving it about."