A MAN smashed up his estranged wife's bed with a baseball bat weeks after she told him that she had feelings for other women, a court heard yesterday.

Kevin Jukes, 41, also punched and kicked her unconscious following the surprise statement from her.

Ten weeks after they had been separated Jukes and his wife Tracey, 30, who had two children, had been to a wedding when he asked if he could stay the night back at their marital home and she said no. He became angry and she went up to bed, said prosecutor Paul Newcombe.

Jukes picked up a baseball bat which she kept for protection and smashed the headboard. When she tried to run, he grabbed, punched and kicked her.

Aisha Wadoodi, defending, said "They had been together since she was 16, and 14 weeks before this incident she came home and said that she had leanings towards other women.

"This came as a bolt out of the blue to him, there was no lead up to it and he was quite traumatised by it."

Jukes of Uppingham Street, Hartlepool, Teesside, was given a nine-month jail sentence suspended for two years. He pleaded guilty to actual bodily harm assault on September 14 last year.