A MAN has narrowly avoided prison for attacking his then girlfriend with a wooden bat, leaving her soaked in blood and needing stitches.
Alistair Smith, a 33-year-old scaffolder from Roseberry Road, Exmouth, also rowed with the woman’s work colleague during a social event and threatened him with a kitchen knife.
Smith was given 40 weeks in prison, suspended for a year, at Exeter Crown Court.
He was also ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work in the community and to pay £500 compensation to his victim.
Smith must also stick to a curfew to stay at home every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between 8pm and 8am until August 28.
He had admitted assaulting the woman occasioning her actual bodily harm and an offence of affray.
The incident happened on October 16 last year, after the victim arranged a leaving party for a colleague and Smith joined them during the evening. At 1.30pm, they headed back to his partner’s home to continue partying and some of the guests left while others went upstairs.
A colleague checked the woman’s welfare after hearing the couple rowing and he noticed that Smith was holding a wooden bat behind his back.
The colleague went away after Smith’s girlfriend said she was fine but he returned after hearing a crash.
The woman had left but Smith was pacing around with a knife in his hand.
Prosecutor Howard Phillips said the defendant threatened the colleague with the knife but others came downstairs and Smith calmed down.
“The colleague said he was terrified,” Mr Phillips told the court.
A taxi driver found Smith’s girlfriend wandering in the street, covered in blood.
“She told him her boyfriend had beat her up,” said the prosecutor.
“She had a badly swollen face, her left ear was bleeding…she had a laceration to her skull and needed two or three stitches to her scalp.”
The woman later told police that she could not remember how she was injured.
Mr Phillips said: “She remembered a scuffle and words being exchanged and remembered being punched, flying and falling down, she had to get out of the house to escape.”
The defendant made no comment when arrested. He has convictions for dishonesty, when he was a youth, and two for drink-driving and one that was the equivalent of being bound over to keep the peace, in Australia in 2006.
Defence counsel Sarah Hornblower said the defendant had apologised to the victim and he was in a new relationship.
Judge John Neligan said he was taking into account that Smith had a job and family responsibilities.
The judge said the public would be better served if the defendant did unpaid community work instead of being sent to prison. He also ordered Smith to attend a programme to look at his alcohol use.
Via: www.thisisexeter.co.uk