A MAN who kicked someone in the head like it was a football broke his own leg when he jumped from a window when police came to arrest him.

Jake Morgan was trying to make a break for it because he feared being sent back to prison for the attack while he was on early release.

But rather than getting away the 26-year-old, who is still on crutches six months later, landed at the feet of a policeman after suffering the fracture.

And after watching CCTV footage of the assault a judge at Swindon Crown Court jailed him for 18 months.

Simon Goodman, prosecuting, said that Morgan had been out drinking at the Casbah in John Street before the incident in the early hours of Friday, October 9, last year.

He said Morgan, who was known to cause trouble at chucking out time, was one of a group of men outside the club.

The victim was seen to fall to the ground and when he got up the defendant hands his jacket to a friend and then throws punches at him.

Both men then swing at each other while others also aim blows at the victim before he was knocked to the ground and Morgan kicked him.

The court was told that witnesses described the blow was 'as if he was kicking a football' and being 'with force'.

As a result of the blow the victim was taken to hospital where he had to have three stitches under one eye and seven to the other.

Morgan, of Chickerell Road, Walcot, pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding.

The court was told that in August 2013 he was jailed for a number of matters relating to the supply of hard drugs and had other previous convictions for violence.

Rob Ross, defending, said the men had been talking about rugby outside the club and the victim made a derogatory comment about the English team.

"Jake Morgan, who accepts he was drunk at the time, said something back and pushed him away," he said.

"Were it not for the nature of the injuries suffered by the victim, bearing in mind what happens of the streets in towns in the middle of the night, it would have ended there. But he did go to hospital to have the wounds to the face looked at."

He said his client had been out of prison for more than a year and had been co-operating with the probation service on his licence.

The kick was not premeditated, he said, happening in a fight lasting a minute or so and his client was full of remorse for what he had done.

He said he was trying to change his ways with the help of his partner, who is 12 weeks pregnant.

Jailing him for 18 months, Recorder Patrick Clarkson QC said: "I do see this as a sustained and repeated assault because it wasn't just one blow.

"There is the use of a weapon, namely the foot, and the seriousness is increased because you were on licence, you were drunk and it was late at night outside a club.

"You are a comparatively young man. I accept you are trying to turn yourself round with the help of your girlfriend who has written to me.

"I look at that with scepticism because when the police came to your accommodation you tried to escape by jumping out of the window and you broke your leg, so that doesn't say to me that you are facing your responsibilities."