Drug addict escapes jail

10:37am Wednesday 12th July 2006

A DRUG addict who attacked his pregnant girlfriend and stole a postman's bike has escaped a prison sentence.

Jonathon Kane, 22, was given a six-month suspended sentence at Swindon Magistrates' Court after convincing the bench he was keen to kick his habit.

Kane, of Godwin Road, Stratton, pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Marisha Wilkinson, who was two months' pregnant with his child at the time.

He also pleaded guilty to a racially aggravated common assault following an incident involving a postman who was originally from Tanzania.

And he admitted possession of a Class A drug and taking a vehicle, the postman's bike, without consent.

Prosecuting, Marion Langford said that the assault on his former girlfriend and the postman had both happened on the same day, June 25 last year.

She said Kane had become angry with Ms Wilkinson when she gave him his tobacco tin back and he found some of it missing.

"After a couple of times of trying to get past him, he grabbed her neck and pushed her against a wall," Mrs Langford said.

He also tried to knee her in the stomach but she managed to get her leg in the way, the court heard.

The attack on the postman happened after Kane and a friend had spent the night drinking.

They were walking through Stratton at about 7am when they saw the postman's bike by a wall.

Kane admitted that he pushed the man, Abdullah Nassoro, and that he racially abused him.

Defending, Rob Ross, said: "Looking at the individual incidents he had always accepted the idiocy of messing around with the postman's bike.

"It was, in many ways, a bit of drunken horseplay that went rather wrong but it wasn't instigated by him."

Mr Ross denied that Kane had grabbed his ex-girlfriend around the neck, saying CCTV evidence showed he had only pushed her.

Kane was sentenced to a six-month drug rehabilitation order and a 12-month supervision order.

The chairman of the bench, Martin Smith, told him: "We could have easily sent you to prison today.

"But we are giving you an opportunity to come off the drugs and prove you can do it."

Kane was also ordered to pay £50 each compensation to his girlfriend and the postman.