A MAN playing cowboys and Indians with a plastic toy pistol and his ten-year-old brother in their garden was arrested by armed police, a court heard yesterday.

Stewart Philip Elve, 24, of Miner's Crescent, Darlington, is standing trial at Teesside Crown Court charged with possessing an imitation firearm causing Helen Finch to believe that unlawful violence would be used

Mr Elve denies the charge.

Mother-of-one Miss Finch, 30, told the court she had been walking home along Jedburgh Drive in Darlington, on October 20 last year at about 6pm, when she heard a loud crack.

She said when she turned round there was a man in a house doorway, with his arm extended, pointing a gun at her. She said she then heard three loud cracks before the man said: "Bang, bang, you're dead."

She told the court: "I just saw a black handgun. I was in shock. I was absolutely terrified. I phoned the police."

Mr Elve said he was arrested by the armed response unit of Darlington police later that night in a nearby park.

He told the court he had been playing with his brother in the garden and the house, and they had been using the ten-year-old's new cap gun to play army, cowboys and Indians and cops and robbers.

Mr Elve said he may have said the words "bang bang you're dead" but they would have been to his little brother and added he never saw a woman in the street and did not deliberately point a the toy gun at her.

When asked if he had pointed the gun at her he said: "No I didn't, I really didn't. I was playing with my brother."

The trial continues.