Sui Yau Mok was driven to distraction by yobs and vandals who tormented him and his family at their fish bar in Brighton.

His patience snapped one day when a youngster was proving particularly awkward at Dickson's fish shop in Beaconsfield Road.

Mr Mok picked up a vat of oil conveniently to hand and hurled it at the unfortunate youth.

That happened a year ago and it was only yesterday in a crown court sitting at Horsham that he cleared his name.

This case has strong echoes of the case involving Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer who shot a teenage burglar at his lonely house.

Like Mr Mok, Martin was defending his property against what he saw as intolerable abuse. And, in the heat of the moment, he went too far.

There is a case for reasonable measures to be taken in defence of personal attack or property even it in involves some problems for the abuser.

And, in some of these cases, many people will wonder whether the right man was in the dock.