A YOUNG family of asylum seekers who were terrorised by neighbours on Teesside have been rehoused on the orders of the Home Office.

The refugee woman and her three children were forced to live in only one room of their three-bedroom house in Stockton in a bid to escape neighbours who tormented them.

Teesside Crown Court heard that it was during the terror campaign that the woman smacked two of her children with a cricket stump after she had told them to go inside the house.

Ian Bradshaw, prosecuting, said the mother, whose husband had left her, had been under a lot of stress because the neighbours were making complaints, and she could speak little English.

Her son told teachers that he was bruised after she hit him with the stump, and his sister also had bruises.

The court heard that the children were placed in foster care but they were crying to be returned to their mother. The family were eventually reunited after social services appealed for them to be rehoused.

Social worker Josie Murphy said: "Because of the neighbours, the mother rarely had a night's sleep, stones were thrown at the windows and fires were set, and she was terrified for herself and the children. In the middle of the night bricks would come through her bedroom window. There were continuous complaints to the police about the harassment and abuse from the neighbours."

The mother was given a two-year conditional discharge after she pleaded guilty to the two common assaults in June last year.