3:00pm Friday 19th March 2010
A 31-year-old man who badly injured his girlfriend’s face when he pushed her over after a drinking session has been hitting the bottle again since avoiding jail last year, a court was told.
In November, Jermaine Gordon was given a 12-month suspended jail sentence and placed under supervision after he admitted assaulting Susan Keith, causing her actual bodily harm at the home they shared in Kemble, near Cirencester.
But he was brought back before the court this week for failing to comply with the rehab requirements of his supervision order.
Prosecutor Nick Fridd said Gordon, of Denmark Road, Gloucester, who admitted the breach, had an alcohol addiction and had failed to take the help on offer to him after his sentence four months ago.
“He has lost his accommodation and he has offended again,” he said.
John Dyer, defending, said Gordon had initially responded well to supervision and had attended about a third of the 30 alcohol rehabilitation sessions he was required to go to.
“He has been subject to an exclusion order and the lack of being able to see his former partner got to him and he relapsed,” Mr Dyer said.
“He was doing well and had been offered self contained accommodation. But having failed to be in contact with his supervisors he has relapsed into drink.
“He showed me his hands and tried to hold them still, but at the age of 31 both his hands are shaking.
“It was on 20th January that he was last in touch. I asked him why and he said he had just let matters drift.”
Mr Dyer said Gordon was anxious to get back to work in his past trade as a kitchen porter.
Judge William Hart said he was not persuaded yet that Gordon was ready to take advantage of the help on offer to him.
He adjourned sentence till April 8, saying that if Gordon proved his good intentions in that time he would not jail him.
“I will expect him between now and then to re-establish contact with the probation service, to convince them he is motivated to get back on track,” said the judge. “If he has done that I will not activate the suspended sentence. If he has not then I will.”
The judge warned Gordon to expect a sentence of about nine months if he returned to court next month without having done what was expected of him.
When the case was before the court last November it was said that Susan Keith had used a ‘particularly hurtful expression’ to Gordon, and he reacted violently in their flat in Windmill Road, Kemble.
She suffered an oedema and bruising to the right eye, a small haemorrhage and swelling to the left cheek, mouth and nose.
Miss Keith later told police that since the attack she had felt too scared to walk around Cirencester on her own or to be in her home alone and she had asked the council if she could move.
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