AN AMATEUR boxer who knocked out a woman who suffers from multiple sclerosis, then rammed her house with a car, has been jailed.

Nick Adlington, prosecuting, said a structural engineer had to be called out to make sure the house was safe after Louis Gordon O’Donoghue’s actions on February 9 in Tadcaster.

Sara Manning had returned from a hospital appointment to the home she then shared with O’Donoghue shortly before he punched her and laid her out outside their home before getting into the car, which was on their driveway.

“Witnesses describe the revving of the engine and the car reversing at speed and colliding with the house,” said Mr Adlington. The damage to the car was £6,000 worth, and £200 worth to the house.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, said: “You are someone, I am satisfied, who has a hot temper, and I am not sure you are someone who can be trusted to be at liberty. You delivered a very heavy blow towards your partner. It was sufficient for her to be knocked out.”

When defence barrister Alasdair Campbell said there was no medical evidence Ms Manning had been knocked out, the judge said there were witness accounts indicating she had.

He jailed O’Donoghue, of no fixed address, for 14 months. O’Donoghue, 34, pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm and criminal damage. The judge deferred making a restraining order banning O’Donoghue from contacting Ms Manning for police checks.

O’Donoghue opposed the order by claiming she didn’t want one. Initially he had been remanded in custody, but was granted bail after he pleaded guilty in June with conditions not to contact her or visit North Yorkshire. He then visited her and was remanded in custody again.

Mr Adlington said the couple had been together for two and a half years and had argued the day before the incident.

On February 9, after she returned from hospital, there was another argument, in which she asked him to leave. He refused and the argument moved into the street. Ms Manning suffered a black eye.