A JUDGE warned that drink is no excuse for violence when he jailed two teenagers on the eve of the Christmas festivities.

Judge Leslie Spittle told Brent Fellows, 18, and Stanley Collin, 19, that they were guilty of "thuggish and loutish behaviour" that terrified others when they attacked a shopkeeper and wrecked his store.

The judge had watched a security video of the incident at Premier Newsagents in Hartlepool after the owner caught Collin apparently trying to steal.

Patricia Mancina, prosecuting, said both men were drunk when they went on the rampage, throwing sweets and cakes around, smashing bottles, and shopkeeper Pathmanathan Thurai was held down and punched.

Miss Mancina said that Collin could not remember the incident having drunk half a bottle of whisky, lager and a two-litre bottle of cider.

Fellows, who was first convicted when he was 12, was in breach of a community punishment order for leading two others in an earlier attack.

Paul Cleasby, defending, said: "Thankfully, the shopkeeper was not badly hurt and no racial abuse took place, but it is loutish behaviour which people should not have to tolerate.

"He is just 18 and when he is sober he is sensible and when he is drunk he is not."

Robin Denny, defending, said Collin, who has been in trouble since he was 13, has since sought help for his drink problem.

Judge Spittle told the men at Teesside Crown Court: "You attacked that shopkeeper two onto one. It must have been a terrifying experience for him. Drink is no excuse."

Fellows, of Kerr Grove, Hartlepool, was sentenced to 12 months in a young offenders' institution after he admitted the September 26 affray and breaching a community punishment for unlawful wounding.

Collin, of Church Street, Hartlepool, was sentenced to ten months after he admitted affray and theft.