A young man who broke a man’s jaw in two places during last year’s Christmas season now has a prison sentence hanging over his head.

Electrical installation engineer Alex Newsome must also pay the victim £750 compensation and will be confined to his home every evening and night until mid-January.

Andrew Semple, prosecuting, said the 19-year-old threatened to hit the victim if he kept talking to him and then broke his jaw with a single punch in Jalal on Micklegate, about midnight on December 30. Both were in drink.

The next day, Newsome sent the victim a Facebook message apologising for what he had done.

“We were both smashed” it said, referring to their drinking, and “I didn’t mean to break your jaw or anything”.

It ended “I just hope we can both put this behind us and get on with our lives.”

The victim had to undergo surgery, have two plates inserted into his jaw, had to take two weeks off work, couldn’t play the sports he loved for four months and nearly a year later was still suffering psychologically, said Mr Semple.

“It was only one punch, but it has had a devastating effect on him,” Judge Andrew Stubbs QC said at York Crown Court.

He gave Newsome a 13-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months on condition he does 100 hours’ unpaid work and observes a three-month nightly curfew between 8pm and 6am “just to be doubly sure you don’t get into further trouble”, said the judge.

He also ordered him to pay £1,190 including £750 compensation, £300 prosecution costs and a £140 statutory surcharge.

Newsome, now 20, of Burtonstone Lane, Clifton, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm.

For him, Neal Kutte said he bitterly regretted his actions which were completely out of character and arose out of an argument between Newsome and the victim.

Newsome had been on a night out with colleagues from the city centre shop where he then worked when the incident happened.

A probation officer said Newsome had told him he now doesn’t go out drinking and only has a glass of wine with his girlfriend.