A NORTH-EAST football club's £1m-rated striker ended up needing hospital treatment for injuries after being found naked in bed with a woman, a court heard yesterday.

Hartlepool United's Adam Boyd - who last night played in the derby against Darlington - was left battered and bruised and had to flee wearing only a T-shirt after an incident, in March, involving the woman's ex-boyfriend in the early hours.

Hartlepool Magistrates' Court heard how the 23-year-old striker went to the home of his friend, Annalee Relton, after bumping into her during a night out in the town.

As the pair lay on a bed upstairs, Miss Relton's ex-partner, Mark Tones, burst into the house with his rugby player brother Henry.

A fight broke out in the large detached house in Bluebell Way, Bishop Cuthbert, Hartlepool, which spilled into the en-suite bathroom and resulted in both Mr Boyd and Miss Relton receiving injuries.

A semi-naked Mr Boyd, who was Hartlepool's top scorer last season with 29 goals, finally managed to flee across the housing estate, while Miss Relton called police.

Yesterday, car salesman Mark Tones was given a nine-month conditional discharge for the attack on 24-year-old Miss Relton. Mr Boyd chose not to press charges.

Last night, Miss Relton, who has a two-year-old daughter with Tones, was still visibly shaken by the ordeal.

She told The Northern Echo: "I'm glad it is finally over. It has been very stressful and the case has been adjourned five or six times, but I'm glad Mark has finally admitted what he did. I don't feel a conditional discharge is sufficient though.

"I'm disappointed that Adam and Hartlepool Football Club did not have the courage to press charges and support me in this.

"Adam was in a bad way - he had more injuries than me, but he did not want the publicity, so I feel as though I have been left to fight this on my own.

"If Adam had pressed charges, too, it would have been dealt with more quickly."

Miss Relton said she decided to press charges after being left severely bruised and in pain for weeks.

Mr Boyd received bruising to his face and legs and cuts to his stomach and foot. After fleeing, he ran to a friend's house, where he got some clothes, and then returned to the house when police were on the scene.

Both he and Miss Relton were taken to University Hospital of Hartlepool for treatment.

The striker was forced to miss training for several days while he recovered at his parent's home in the Owton Manor area of Hartlepool.

Miss Relton said she was hurt by rumours that she had made up the attack and caused the injuries to herself.

"I decided to prosecute because it was a terrifying experience and no one should be allowed to get away with doing that to anybody," she said.

"Me and Mark had split up and I was a free agent. Mark had moved back to his parents' house and had taken his belongings.

"I was staying in the house with our daughter until I found somewhere else to go. I was doing nothing wrong when he attacked me."

Miss Relton wiped away tears as she told how she and Mr Boyd were only talking and she was fully clothed when the Tones brothers raced upstairs.

Graeme Richardson, prosecuting, said in light of Mark Tones' guilty plea, the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence in relation to Henry Tones, 23, a West Hartlepool rugby player.

Neil Taylor, mitigating, told the court Tones acted on provocation.

He said: "She was in bed with a man she met that night and he was naked."

Mr Taylor told the court the house was owned by Tones and that the relationship with Miss Relton was going through a rough patch.

He continued: "Mark Tones was on a stag party away from the town, which returned to Hartlepool.

"He inevitably returned home in a taxi with his brother. He got home to find in his bedroom, in his house, his girlfriend in bed with another man.

"That led to an altercation and it is right to say that Miss Relton suffered injuries. A certain gentleman raises no complaint.

"Could that have been because he was in a place he perhaps shouldn't have been, with someone he perhaps shouldn't have been with?"

In addition to the conditional discharge, Tones, of Cresswell Drive, Hartlepool, was ordered to pay £100 compensation to Miss Relton and £43 court costs.

Mr Boyd told The Northern Echo last night he wanted to forget the incident.