An estate agent who thought he had acted as an “honest broker” has been given an 11-month prison sentence suspended for two years after admitting being in possession of an offensive weapon.

Richard Hall, owner of Brooklands estate agents in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, had been asked by a landlord, Karen Yates, for help.

She had been advised by police to contact Hall after issues with a tenant.

Hall duly went to see the tenant and told him to leave, believing his intervention on behalf of the landlord to be “noble”.

However, the tenant’s brother-in-law, Antony Houghton, then went to see the agent.

In court, Houghton claimed that Hall had locked him in the office, demanded the keys to the property be handed over within 24 hours, and punched him in the face, before chasing him down the street with the baseball bat which he had retrieved from his car.

Houghton said that Hall had “flipped”.

Hall had initially claimed that Houghton had threatened him and that he had only armed himself with the baseball bat “to make a point”.

But on the day he was due to stand trial, Hall, 41, admitted the charge of possessing an offensive weapon.

Eric Lamb, in mitigation, said that at the time, Hall believed he was helping the landlord, but now accepted the prosecution’s case, although he did not accept that he had chased Houghton down the road.

Describing Hall as “impulsive”, he said he was of previous good character but had some “unresolved personal issues”.

At Liverpool Crown Court, Judge Thomas Teague told Hall: “You may have thought you were acting as an honest broker, but you went far beyond anything that could possibly be justified. This was a disgraceful display of public violence.”

As well as the suspended sentence, Hall was ordered to undergo 12 months of supervision and do 200 hours of unpaid work.

Judge Teague warned him that any breach would result in Hall serving the entire sentence in prison.