A FORMER soldier armed with a sledgehammer smashed every cashpoint in a town centre because “he hated Billingham”.

Daniel Arnold, 23, who had been invalided out of the Coldstream Guards, caused £14,000 damage in two nights to banks, stores, a Chinese restaurant and stonework.

Arnold, who was jailed for two-and-a-half years yesterday, at Teesside Crown Court, told police that he had been involved in a row with a former girlfriend and was also angry after being refused access to his child.

Duncan McReddie, defending, said that Arnold, now a gardener, was suffering from a mental illness that could be treated in the community.

Judge George Moorhouse said Arnold was responding to treatment in prison, but added: “I think he caused so much havoc to the people of Billingham that he has to be locked up.”

Arnold almost severed his thumb while smashing a £3,000 glass canopy at the town’s art gallery during his rampage on the nights of June 29 and 30, said Olivia Cheka-Dover, prosecuting.

She said that residents who discovered that he had put every cashpoint in the town centre out of action turned their anger on the police because the local station was unmanned after 10pm.

Arnold was on a tagged curfew for a burglary, but he threw the tag into a stream before taking his father’s sledgehammer.

Miss Cheka-Dover said: “He says he just hated Billingham. He smashed up three benches in a play area. He said that he broke his leg there when he was three years old and the damage was in revenge for that.”

Mr McReddie said that a psychiatrist reported that Arnold had been suffering from a psychosis at the time.

His parents were so worried that they were trying to get mental health help for him.

Mr McReddie said: “Medication has led to a marked improvement. He has a recognised mental illness which requires treatment, which is best done in the community and his employment has been kept open for him.”

The judge told Arnold: “You went on what can only be described as a destructive rampage. You seem to have gone berserk and you broke every cash machine in the town. ”

Arnold, of Central Avenue, Billingham, pleaded guilty to seven offences of criminal damage, two burglaries and asked for 21 more cases of criminal damage to be taken into consideration.

His lawyers are considering an appeal.