A MAN with a history of domestic abuse has been jailed after he attacked his former partner just two months after he was given a suspended sentence for a similar alcohol-fuelled attack.

Colin Coglan grabbed his victim around the throat, headbutting her to the face and kicking her in the stomach after he turned up at her Darlington home while heavily intoxicated.

The 33-year-old, of Fawcett Street, Darlington, had persuaded her to let him into her home despite his drunken condition and within minutes he launched his brutal attack after calling her a ‘stupid slag’, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Mahmood Awan, prosecuting, said the couple had shared an on-and-off relationship for several years although it was blighted by regular bouts of drunken domestic abuse.

“He grabbed hold of her, pushed her onto the bed before grabbing her around her throat and headbutting her,” he said. “He then kicked her in the ribs before the victim’s father appeared and managed to get him out of the house.”

He said the defendant had been given an 18-month suspended prison sentence for a similar charge of assault by beating on the same woman in May this year when he pinned her to the bed and attacked her.

The court heard that since his remand in custody the pair had continued to contact each other.

In mitigation, Stephen Constantine, said following his suspended sentence his client had managed to secure a job for the first time in 13-years and was trying to turn his life around until a conversation with his father led to his life spiralling out of control again.

He said: "He received some information from his father but he thought he was keeping something from him, something to do with an illness, so he went around to see and they both started drinking and that's when the incident occurred.

"He has little or no recollection of it at all."

Mr Constantine said the defendant had spent nine weeks in custody following the assault in August and hoped that he would not be returning following his guilty plea to assault by beating.

Judge Deborah Sherwin, who passed Coglan's suspended sentence in June, said: "It is a matter of great regret that less than two months after the sentence was suspended that you were back drinking again and your reaction was to go and assault her again.

"It was a horrendous incident in which you did kick her and fortunately for the victim she did not suffer serious injury. This is so serious that custody is required."

The judge activated the suspended 18-month sentence for the previous assault and ordered him to serve a consecutive two-month sentence for his latest attack – a total of 20 months.