A JEALOUS labourer who had a knife in his hand during two violent outbursts against women has been jailed.

Danny Watson, 23, smashed furniture and threw items around the flat he and his then girlfriend were sharing because he thought she was cheating on him, Ben Campbell, prosecuting, told York Crown Court. One piece of wood hit her in the face.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, said Watson’s friend, who witnessed the violence and with whom he had been drinking in a pub just before the incident, leapt out of the flat window and called police because he was “afraid of what might happen” between Watson and the girlfriend.

The barrister said Watson was on bail at the time for storming into another woman’s home and then, after her father threw him out, returning with a knife and using it to break a window and slash at a car’s tyres.

The court heard Watson thought the woman had told his girlfriend that he had been cheating on her.

Watson, 23, of Kitchen Drive, Selby, pleaded guilty to both affrays on the days they were listed for trial and was convicted by a jury of handling a drill stolen from the Selby building site where he had worked for a time.

He was jailed for 21 months and given a restraining order banning him from going near his former girlfriend’s home or contacting her for five years.

His barrister Andrew Stranex said the relationship had been going through a period of turmoil and stress and that had led to him react the way he had. He said Watson had the knife in his hand with a view to harming himself. He was a hard worker, who had been so highly regarded during his time on the building site, the firm that had been seeking to re-employ him on a higher wage, said the defence barrister.

His client recognised that he had a problem with drink.