A Kent retailer’s year-long nightmare has come to an end after he was cleared of assaulting a teenage vandal.

Sheikh Tariq Mahmood grabbed one of several youngsters who had broken a window and door in an incident at his store near Dartford last June. The youth claimed to have passed out after being held by the neck, but this was not backed up by CCTV.

Maidstone magistrates last month ruled that Sheikh had acted in responsible defence of his property and himself.

Sheikh’s sister-in-law Nalia Salim said: “This has made a gentle person want to give up and retire.”