A MAN has been given a 12-month prison sentence for hitting his former partner around the head with a beer bottle.

John Turner, 29, from Church Road, Consett, County Durham, turned up at the woman’s house at 2.30am on May 29 high on mephedrone after he had been to a rave.

The pair had split up six months earlier and he begged her to take him back but she refused.

Turner began rifling through her kitchen drawers and called her ‘a whore’ when he found condoms, before attacking her with one of two lager bottles he was carrying.

Ros Scott Bell, prosecuting at Durham Crown Court, said: “The defendant hit her over the head with a bottle.

“He proceeded to strike her several times. She put up her hands to protect herself, but he struck her again. She could feel blood running down her neck. At first she thought it was lager then she realised she had been injured. She describes being left in shock.”

The court heard the woman’s 13-year-old son was in the house at the time of the attack and he went to hospital with her.

A cut on her head was treated with surgical glue.

Turner, who had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to one charge of assault causing actual bodily harm.

Stephen Constantine, mitigating, said Turner showed remorse and contrition and his victim did not wish to see him jailed.

He said: “She described that the relationship was never violent. She described the incident as a one off. On this particular occasion he was heavily intoxicated.

“She is very generous, far more generous than she needs to be. She is the biggest supporter of my submission that this man is given some help.

“He is absolutely appalled at his behaviour. He wants to go back to being a model citizen. There will be no repeat of this behaviour.”

Judge Christopher Prince jailed Turner for 12 months, saying a custodial sentence could not be suspended.

He said: “Her sympathies for you, I of course, take into account. That she takes such a humane attitude is testament to her character.

“This was a victim who was vulnerable because of her circumstances. There was a 13-year-old boy in the house and you attacked his mother.

“It was a sustained and repeated assault and use was made of a weapon.”