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A volatile offender smashed up his sister's car, threatened to kill her then urinated in the back of a police van when he was arrested.

Carl Sullivan's sister heard smashing and saw him attacking her BMW outside her home at 8.10pm on January 7.

She thought he had a "small baseball bat" as he hit "almost every window and a wing mirror", prosecutor Jenny Haigh told Teesside Crown Court.

He had been to her home just over an hour earlier asking for money, when she gave him £2.

Police later found him in another home, with a blood-covered rolling pin found on the kitchen floor.

He was bailed and told not to go to his sister's street after his arrest, but returned to her home again at 2am a week later.

She heard a loud bang and looked out of her window to her Sullivan in her front garden shouting abuse.

He waved his arms and yelled: "You are a grass. I will f***ing kill you."

The drunken offender shouted abuse at officers who caught him riding his bike.

He said he had taken some tablets and was put in the back of a police van and taken to hospital.

Officers were concerned about members of the public as put Sullivan back in the van as he became aggressive, disruptive and volatile.

He exposed himself to police, urinated in the back of the van and put the cord from his hooded top around his neck before he was taken to the police station.

His sister later said in a statement she was scared and worried about what he may do.

Sullivan, of Fraser Grove, Hartlepool, admitted two charges of criminal damage - to his sister's car and the police van - and one of threatening a witness.

He had a 12-year record with convictions for violent disorder, criminal damage, having a firework in the street, threatening behaviour, breaching an Asbo, domestic violence and harassment.

Martin Scarborough, defending, said Sullivan got involved in someone else's money dispute in the first incident, and had no memory of the second.

He said: "It's clearly going to be a custodial sentence.

"He has an unattractive record. This isn't a case where there's been a prolonged history. It's an isolated incident with no violence."

Now Sullivan had been working with the Drug and Alcohol Recovery Team (DART) in prison and seeing doctors over mental health issues.

(Image: Peter Reimann)

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, told Sullivan: "You're an angry young man. You've got a very bad record.

"Threatening a witness of any kind to any extent is a very serious offence and can only be dealt with by a sentence of imprisonment."

Sullivan, appearing in court via video link to Durham Prison, was jailed for 11 months and given a five-year restraining order.