A FANTASIST who lived out his SAS dreams by using ponies as target practice for his powerful crossbow was jailed for two years yesterday.

Police raided Mark Telford's home after the attack and found that he was making a copy of an M16 assault rifle.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that Telford had a sick obsession with the SAS and boasted he had mastered the crack unit's techniques in bringing down animals.

While most of his hatred was directed at animals, on one occasion he even shot a child who was running down the street outside his home.

He was condemned as "sick and twisted" by the owners of Prince and Frisco, two show ponies which were grazing in a field when he shot them with 18 inch steel bolts.

Telford used a Commando 2 crossbow in the attack - one of the most powerful in the world.

Next morning the horses were found cowering by their owner David Scott, 42, with the bolts still lodged inside them.

Telford, 28, denied the attack but at an earlier hearing at Newcastle Crown Court was found guilty of two charges of damaging property.

The court had heard how Prince had been shot in the head while the shaft of another bolt was sticking out of Frisco's neck. Both animals recovered.

Sarah Mallett, prosecuting, told the court Telford attacked the ponies after a night of drinking at a deserted mine shaft then an argument with his friend Thomas Harris on March 11 last year.

Telford, of Wordsworth Avenue, Whickham, Gates-head, was jailed for two years after being convicted of damaging property. He admitted manufacturing a firearm, possessing an unlawful firearm and possession of the crossbow and bolts. The court heard that Telford designed a gun to replicate an M16 assault rifle, which he had seen in his SAS magazines.

Police found the half completed weapon in a box when they raided his home.

He was jailed for 20 months for manufacturing the gun, a further 20 months to run concurrently for possessing the gun, three months for shooting the horses to run concurrently and four months for possession of the crossbow and bolts, to run consecutively; a total of 24 months