A team from the Elite Leadership Black Belt Academy in Staple Hill has returned from the South of England Chung Do Kwan martial arts Championships with an eight-medal haul.

The six-strong team claimed two gold medals and six silvers at the event in Portsmouth over the weekend across a spread of disciplines, which included kickboxing, weapons and patterns categories.

Dean Turner, 10, was the first to land a top gong after his creative pole form was good enough to beat team-mate Samantha Berry, 14, who performed a complicated sequence with rice flails, for a silver medal slot.

Turner added a silver medal in the junior black belt kick-boxing bouts before losing out narrowly in the quarter finals of the full-contact sparring and patterns divisions.

Berry, meanwhile, claimed her second silver medal in the junior black belt patterns event.

Alex Soper, 12, claimed the Academy's second gold medal of the day following a dominating performance in the boys' lightweight full contact Taekwondo category.

Brother and sister duo Brandon, 10, and Jasmin Brice, 9, both went home with a silver in the full-contact Taekwondo sections.

Toby England, six, who trains in kick-boxing at the academy, tried his hand at full-contact under Taekwondo rules and adapted quickly to take a silver medal.

Sean Iles, 23, from Cadbury Heath, reached the final in the novice light-heavyweight kick-boxing and was only edged out into second place by a single point.

Academy instructor Andy Davies will now focus on preparing a team for the British Championships to be held in Keynsham at the end of March.

He said: "We only took a small squad to the event, but I am happy with how they performed.

"We've had a really heavy schedule from October through to January where we have had some excellent successes in the Welsh National Championships, Scottish Open and now the South of England Championships.

"We're looking forward to doing well at the British Championships next month."