A TEENAGER who held a social worker hostage at knifepoint has been convicted by magistrates.

The 17-year-old had denied falsely imprisoning the woman at his Breightmet home after she visited to inform his mother that her daughter had been taken into care.

During a two day trial, Bolton Youth Court heard how the social worker, aged in her 20s, and a police officer went to the house on the morning of June 9.

Social services had obtained a court order to protect the youth's younger sister amid fears that her family were planning to force her to marry a 35-year-old cousin.

But magistrates heard how the teenager got a knife from the kitchen, locked the front door and, in a rage, demanded that his sister be returned.

"I was terrified. I thought he was going to stab me," said the social worker, who wept as she gave her evidence.

DC Wayne Hagan and a neighbour managed to escape out of a back door, but the social worker fled upstairs to be followed by the teenager, who locked the back door, preventing her from leaving.

He demanded that the terrified mum contact his sister, pointing the large kitchen knife at his neck and his victim.

The social worker, who said she even considered jumping from a first floor window to escape, pretended to call the girl, but in reality she had dialled 999.

Her ordeal ended when uniformed officers arrived, demanded the youth's mother unlock the back door for them and persuaded the teenager to put down the knife.

The youth admitted affray, but denied he had pointed the knife at people and that he had falsely imprisoned the social worker.

But chairman of magistrates, Richard Morgan, told him his account of the incident was not believable.

"We find your evidence was inconsistent and changed on a number of occasions," said Mr Morgan.

"You did point the knife in a threatening manner. During the altercation on the stairs we do believe you stopped the social worker from leaving — the subsequent locking of the back door compounded the matter."

The teenager will be sentenced on August 24 following the preparation of reports about him and in the meantime he was remanded into the care of the local authority.