A MOTHER-OF-TWO who attacked her partner with a bread knife has been spared jail by a judge who told her: "Your children need you."

Cheryl Wheeler, 29, was given an 18-month community rehabilitation order yesterday after she admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Teesside Crown Court heard how Wheeler and former lover Peter Leech had been drinking heavily in the hours leading up to a row they had at their home in Redcar, east Cleveland, on August 5 last year.

Adrian Strong, prosecuting, said Wheeler got the knife from the kitchen and slashed at Mr Leech, catching him on the right leg.

Mr Leech stood up and demanded the weapon, but was then cut on the left leg, before Wheeler called for an ambulance.

Paramedics alerted police to the attack, but Mr Leech did not want to press charges.

Wheeler, of The Parklands, was arrested and admitted attacking her partner, but said she had taken an overdose and initially got the knife to harm herself.

Her barrister, Katherine Dunn, told the court how an abusive relationship - which is now over - and a troubled upbringing, had led Wheeler into a life of excessive drinking and drug-taking.

She said her client had been drinking up to ten pints a day from the age of nine, but had cut that down to four pints a week, and was now drug-free.

Miss Dunn said that the attack had been a wake-up call for Wheeler to finally end the relationship and seek help for her addictions. She described the change in Wheeler's lifestyle and outlook as dramatic.

Mr Recorder Simon Phillips told Wheeler: "You must understand that any deliberate attack with a knife is regarded very seriously by these courts.

"Your four-year-old and six-year-old daughters need you, and Mr Leech did not, and has not, wished to see you prosecuted."

Mr Recorder Phillips gave Wheeler credit for her early guilty plea, for calling the ambulance after the attack and for co-operating with the police, and said she was taking steps in the right direction.

"I am satisfied that this was not a pre-meditated attack, but in that drunken state you worked yourself into an emotional state," he said.