A MAN who cut the hair of two sleeping women escaped an immediate prison sentence, but must pay his victims a combined £1,000 in compensation.

Ryan Hallimond received a social media message from a former girlfriend, with whom he was said to have been in a casual relationship since the previous November, inviting him to her home in the early hours of May 8 last year.

Durham Crown Court heard that the woman and a friend had been drinking at her house and at the home of another friend the previous evening.

Hallimond told her he did not think he could get to her home as he did not have transport and, so, the woman fell asleep on the sofa, while her friend had already gone to bed upstairs.

Deborah Smithies, prosecuting, said the householder woke at about 4.30am to find the defendant standing over her, with a pair of scissors in one hand while holding her hair in the other.

“She could feel him pulling on it and she asked what he was doing, and how he had got in,” said Miss Smithies.

The woman saw a clump of her hair on the floor next to where she was sleeping.

Urging her to, “calm down”, Hallimond said he got in through the door and said she “should see” her friend upstairs, who was, “a lot worse”.

Despite urging her not to wake her up, she went straight upstairs and roused her friend, who also discovered some of her hair was cut off, as a clump was lying on the floor next to the bed.

She went downstairs and confronted Hallimond, who laughed and said: “It doesn’t matter what she looked like,” adding that she was, “a slut”.

Miss Smithies said he eventually left and police were called.

Both women were said to be in a distressed condition when officers attended the house, in Holly Hill, Shildon.

One of the women, who had previously done some hair modelling work, described how she felt “violated” by his actions.

The defendant was arrested several weeks later and, apart from denying being in a relationship with the householder, made no comment.

Twenty-two-year-old Hallimond, of Cedar Grove, Shildon, previously denied two counts of assault causing actual bodily harm, but on the day the case was to go to trial, changed his plea to ‘guilty’ to both charges.

A probation report read to the court said that although his behaviour was, “bizarre and concerning”, it was not thought there was any, “underlying paraphilic element” to his actions.

Eric Watson, mitigating, said Hallimond recently began a concreting job and the best way he could repay the women for his actions was to compensate them.

Judge Simon Hickey told Hallimond said there was an element of “degradation” about his behaviour that night, but accepted he was now “embarrassed” at what he had done.

He imposed a 21-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, during which Hallimond must undergo 20-days rehabilitation work with the Probation Service.

Judge Hickey also ordered him to pay one victim £750 compensation and the other, £250, while he was also made subject of a 15-year restraining order preventing him trying to contact either woman.