A teenager who stabbed his violent brother to death at their home after being bullied by him for years has been spared jail.

William West, who was a year older than his brother, had attacked Daniel, now 19, and their mother Hayley Noble-Jones and smashed up their home in Hartlepool repeatedly, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Both brothers had been drinking when William attacked Daniel for the final time in November. Daniel told police that he seized the knife William had tried to use against him and turned it on his brother. Judge Peter Fox, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said that the degree of provocation was exceptional and extreme. “Your punishment, I have no doubt, will be life-long,” he said. “It will be the lasting knowledge and awareness of the sorrow you have caused to yourself, but most especially, to your mother.”

He gave West a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years, allowing him to leave court.

His plea of not guilty to murder but guilty of manslaughter due to provocation was accepted at an earlier hearing.

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