A MAN was locked up yesterday for hitting a pregnant girl with a piece of wood.

David Devine, 20, had been reported to police for harassing his victim Sasha Richardson, also 20, over a claimed £300 debt owed by her former boyfriend.

Devine bombarded her with phone calls before confronting her in the street.

He picked up the wood, which had a rusty nail embedded in it, and he hit her three times, said Aisha Wadoodi, prosecuting.

One blow fractured her left arm, as she tried to protect her face. Another left a three-inch scar on her forehead, and she had a six-inch cut to her back, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Since the attack, on The Green, in Billingham, she has suffered panic attacks and weakness in the arm, said Miss Wadoodi.

Devine now accepted that he was irrationally pursuing Miss Richardson over the debt, said Christine Egerton, in mitigation. She said that he was in an emotional turmoil after the break-up, six months before, of his relationship with the mother of his year-old son and his lack of access.

Miss Egerton said: "He is truly sorry.

"He intends to attend an anger management course and he has cut down on his drinking."

The judge Recorder Malcolm Swift QC told him: "This is a serious matter.

"I always regard street violence as a serious matter because the public is entitled to be protected from violence being wrought upon them when they are going about their lawful business.

"The public is entitled to expect the courts to deal firmly with this kind of offending."

Devine, of Tasmania Square, Marton, Middlesbrough, was sent to a young offender's institution for eight months after he pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding on August 14 last year.