A CROWN court recorder quoted Shakespeare when sentencing a teenager who threatened a woman over the repayment of a £90 loan.

David Aaron Smith smashed a window at the woman's family home, in Shildon, County Durham, as she still owed him the final £30 instalment on the loan.

Durham Crown Court heard that two concrete slabs were thrown through the window of the living room where the couple's one-year-old child was sitting in a high chair at the time.

Rachel Hedworth, prosecuting, said the child was frightened but unhurt.

The woman's husband saw Smith being carried away from the scene on the pillion of a motorcycle.

He returned the next day threatening to break the rest of the windows unless he was paid £32.

Miss Hedworth said he was arrested a day later and picked out on an identity parade.

Despite making denials in police interviews, 18-year-old Smith, of Archer Avenue, Bishop Auckland, admitted putting a person in fear of violence by harassment, at a previous hearing.

Peter Schofield, mitigating, said Smith wanted to make it clear he was not a money lender, but went about recovering the money "in an entirely inappropriate way".

Mr Schofield said Smith was now in well-paid work as a roofer working in Oxfordshire during the week.

Imposing a 120-hour community punishment order, with £400 costs, Recorder John Muir told Smith: "To quote William Shakespeare: 'Neither a borrower or lender be'.

"In your case, that would have been good advice to follow."

The quote appears in Act 1 Scene 3 of the Bard's classic, Hamlet.