A FORMER trainee priest and a police worker arrested after they fought back against yobs have walked free from court.

Peter Foster, 38, and Andrew Barbour, 40, armed themselves with "Ninja sticks" and confronted teenagers they blamed for terrorising a neighbourhood at Radcliffe, near Bury.

They were arrested when a 15-year-old boy complained to police that he had been assaulted with the martial arts weapon.

A judge told the two men they could not take the law into their own hands. But he released them with conditional discharges after telling them: "I understand your position very well indeed. You were probably at the end of your tether."

Manchester Crown Court heard yesterday that the pair encountered a series of problems with a group of youths who gathered around shops in the centre of Radcliffe.

Foster, a bespectacled bus driver who once trained as a Jesuit priest, and his friend Barbour, who works as a police custody clerk, had reported the youths to police on "numerous occasions".

Graffiti

Because of his determination to tackle the yobs, Barbour had obscene graffiti daubed on his front door. The court was told Foster and Barbour decided to arm themselves with the Ninja sticks when they went to a local pub in April last year in case they came across the teenagers.

A confrontation did break out and Foster removed his glasses before asking one youth: "Do you want to fight me like a man?" He then hit the youth with the sticks.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, went to the police the following day and made a complaint. He was found to have injury marks to his knee and thigh.

Foster admitted assaulting the 15-year-old youth, while Barbour pleaded guilty to possessing the Ninja sticks. Judge Anthony Hammond allowed them both to walk free from court, sentencing them to 12-month conditional discharges.

'Nuisance'

He said: "People have been made subject to behaviour orders and people have been drifting into this area of Radcliffe from other areas and making nuisances of themselves. It has escalated into criminal damage, graffiti, assaults and other incidents.

"Their behaviour tends to be alarming, tends to be frightening and at times goes out of control. But there is only one course which can be followed and that is to obtain evidence and get behaviour orders against named individuals.

"You can't take the law into your own hands. I understand your position very well indeed. You were probably at the end of your tether."

Prosecutor Wendy Neilson said Foster and Barbour, both from Radcliffe, were on their way to a pub when there was a confrontation with two youths standing outside a chip shop with friends. "The boys had been involved in trouble with the defendants before," she said.

When police arrested the defendants, Barbour handed over the Ninja sticks, and said he and Foster used them for martial arts training. Chudi Grant, for Barbour, said the defendants knew two of the youths involved in the incident. "Obscene graffiti had been daubed on the defendant's door and one of them was cautioned as a result," he said.

"On numerous occasions he has phoned the authorities but the response from the police has not been as prompt as it might have been."

'Public-spirited'

Mr Grant said Barbour was "an industrious and public-spirited individual", concerned about anti-social behaviour in the area round his home. Because of his attempts to deal with the problem, he had become a target.

Against that background, Barbour went out with the Ninja sticks. He now faces disciplinary proceedings from GMP, where he works as a civilian custody clerk.

Michael Blakey, for Foster, said it was clear from police reports there had been problems with youths who congregated in Radcliffe.

Outside court Peter Foster told the M.E.N. he had suffered six months of hell at the hands of a gang which gathered on Turks Road. He said that police failed to tackle the youths, despite vandalism, threats and drunken behaviour. "We were the victims here, not them," he said.

Recalling the incident, he said: "We decided we weren't going to be held to ransom by feral youths basically. Because of the number of kids that were there, about 15 or 20 of them, we foolishly decided to take the sticks with us when we went to go to the pub.

""We went on a circuitous route to try and avoid confrontation with these kids." He said of the confrontation with the 15-year-old: "I thought he had a knife in his hand and he made a motion like he was going to stab me in the neck and that's when I blocked his thrust towards me and got the stick out of my sleeve.

"I hit him across one of his legs and then I hit him across the other leg and that stopped him in his tracks. Then all the other kids came running forward and I was in fear of my life."