A HOT-headed baker who headbutted a sausage roll making machine has ended up with a financial headache.

Shane Thompson, of Princess Road, Malton, North Yorkshire, smashed his forehead into the touch display screen of the £27,000 computer-controlled machine after it produced faulty batches of the savoury pastry snack.

Scarborough Magistrates Court was told after his bosses at Marks & Spencer supplier Yorkshire Baker, on the Norton Grove Industrial Estate, Norton, saw the damage the 22-year-old's violence had caused, they told him repairs to the six-inch by four-inch crack in the display would cost £3,200 to fix.

Kathryn Reeve, prosecuting, said the baker had been working for the gourmet bakery, which has 200 staff and moved into a £12m 6,000sq m plant last year after being bought out by Cranswick Foods, for 17 months when his frustration boiled over.

Since the incident in July, Thompson has found a new job as a ride operator at the nearby Flamingo Land theme park.

But bosses at Yorkshire Baker, which has supplied all-butter pastry sausage rolls, pasties, quiches and pies since it was launched in 2008, docked £295 from his wages to cover the cost of the damage and demanded Thompson paid the £2,900 balance, the court heard.

Robert Vining, defending, said: “The defendant is at a total loss to understand how butting a glass screen and cracking it results in that piece of equipment being worthless.

“He admits he became frustrated with the equipment.

"It was not making the pastry properly so he lost his temper and head butted the glass screen and cracked it.”

Thompson admitted criminal damage and was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £720 compensation towards the cost of repairing the machine.

An order was made to take the money out of his wages.

The case was stood down for inquiries to be made into whether the Swedish made machine could be repaired more cheaply.