A FORMER school caretaker accused of preparing explosives to deal with yobs who attacked his home fought back tears yesterday as he recalled the “living hell” his family endured.

Nicholas Smith, 53, became emotional as he told a jury at Teesside Crown Court how his dream move to a County Durham village to be near his daughter turned into a nightmare.

Mr Smith entered the witness box as his defence case started and recalled the night when problems with neighbours in Twelfth Street, Horden, became too much for him to cope with.

He said he and his wife, Dorothy, had been plagued by children throwing eggs and balls at their home, peering through windows and playing football in the terraced street.

On May 8, after hearing about an egg attack as he drank in a social club, Mr Smith called police and told them: “Well, now there will be trouble because you lot have not stopped it.”

The grandfather told the jury yesterday that he did not mean it as a threat that he was going to do anything, and claimed that he feared there would be more bother with his neighbours.

During cross-examination from prosecutor Dan Cordey, he admitted being frustrated, agitated and angry at the situation but said he would have behaved differently had he not been drunk.

He described the internet search for “how to make a bomb” and the early preparations of napalm – using lighter fuel and grated soap – as being like some kind of out of body experience.

Mr Smith said it was as if the procedures were being carried out by someone else as he watched, and told the court: “That somebody else decided to do something I would never do.”

He added: “He just went upstairs to use the computer – you are two people in one. Any sane person would not do that, any sober person would not do anything as stupid as what went off.

“I am not doing it. That somebody else is going up to the computer to sort it out . . . just putting something into the computer – how to make a bomb. I don't remember doing it myself.”

Mr Cordey asked him: “Was revenge in your mind?” Ex-Territorial Army soldier Mr Smith replied: “No, not mine. I assume the other person . . . he had totally blown his marbles.”

Four days before Mr Smith was found mixing together the household products, he posted a message on Facebook declaring war on the yobs with the warning: “I will burn them tonight.”

He told Mr Cordey: “That was just something put up in anger, anger and total frustration . . . would I burn them? No I would not . . . I may have said it, but I would never do it.

“I was fed up with it all. It was like living in a war-zone. It is a war when you are trying to sort your life out. I just totally lost it. I had gone through hell with it. I just wanted it to end.”

Answering questions from his own barrister, Natah Rasiah, Mr Smith said his experiences of losing a daughter and granddaughter would have stopped him harming other children.

The jury of seven women and five men is expected to retire to consider its verdicts today on the two charges under the Explosive Substances Act 1883 which are denied by Mr Smith.