LEGAL rights groups have blasted the criminal justice system after a Padiham man was legally ordered to leave his home - despite a court order telling him to stay there.

The legal bungle left Stewart Murgatroyd, 33, of Malvern Avenue, in a catch 22 situation where he was breaking the law whatever course of action he took.

The problem was caused by two conflicting court orders - the curfew enforced by an electronic tag that told him he must live at home and an injunction which banned him from the address.

He was handed a 12-month conditional discharge by Burnley magistrates after being forced to admit breaching the curfew order.

But he has hit out at the authorities and is backed by legal and human rights groups who have ridiculed the law.

"At the end of the day I have done nothing wrong. It's just ludicrous," Mr Murgatroyd said. "If I moved I would get done and if I stayed I would get done.

"I thought to myself 'I'm going to get done for something I have no control over'. I could not win either way. I feared I would go to prison."

Eric Metcalfe, of law reform organisation Justice, said: "This sentence is an absurdity. It's a case where it seems plain that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

"Unfortunately it's the kind of situation that's likely to happen more and more often as the Government presses ahead with various kinds of restriction orders such as Anti Social Behaviour Orders."

Barry Hugill, spokesman for human rights group Liberty, added: "It's an impossible situation. We would have been outraged if he had been imprisoned.

"It's an inefficiency of the court system. One should have known what the other was doing."

Mr Murgatroyd was given the tag after he breached a community service order imposed for assault. Then he was given an injunction to leave his house by a county court judge following clashes with neighbours.

He said: "A bailiff came and said you have to go or the police will arrest you. I said 'I can't win. If I go I'm breaking the tag but if I don't then I'm breaking the injunction'. I've had a rough deal with all of this."

Partner Dawn Hughes, 32, said: "It's gutted me. If he does anything in 12 months then he could go back to prison but he should not have got anything."

Mr Murgatroyd admits he has a criminal past but says he has now "settled down" and wants to put his past behind him.

Murgatroyd's solicitor Richard Taylor said magistrates had taken the situation into account when sentencing. They had revoked the tagging order and given the conditional discharge for the original offence of assault.

He said confusion had arisen because of two separate courts making two different orders.

Burnley Magistrates Court and the CPS were unable to comment.