A MAN who was stabbed defending his girlfriend’s honour has himself been jailed for injuring her with a glass bottle.

Last November, Keith David Whitehead, 43, had a knife fight with Corey Michael Frayne, 29, after the younger man made unwanted advances to the woman.

But by May, the older man’s behaviour towards her had become so bad a court had banned him from going to her home under a domestic violence protection order.

Ashleigh Metcalfe, prosecuting, told York Crown Court Whitehead went to the woman’s home on May 27, called her names and threw a glass bottle at the wall. The bottle smashed and fragments injured her.

“The defendant ran from the property,” said the prosecution barrister.

“It sums up your character,” the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told him. “You left her bleeding on the floor and ran away. If you had obeyed the law, this wouldn’t have happened, and the woman wouldn’t have been cut.”

Whitehead, of no fixed address, was jailed for 14 months and made subject to a restraining order banning him from contacting the woman for five years.

He pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm.

“He does care for her,” said defence barrister Victoria Smith-Swain. “But he recognises the relationship is over and he wants to move forward in his life.”

Ms Metcalfe said the woman was sitting outside her home having a few drinks with a friend when Whitehead rang her and they argued at 2.30pm. He turned up at her home at 3.30pm and started asking questions about the man with her. “He had no right being at the property,” said the prosecution barrister.

After about 20 minutes, Whitehead calmed down but after a bit started being aggressive again.

He had been drinking and called the woman names before picking up the glass bottle and throwing it. The woman had a deep cut near her left eye and was taken by ambulance to hospital for treatment.

Ms Smith-Swain said Whitehead had never intended to harm the woman and was remorseful.

He suffered from a bi-polar condition and epilepsy and had been referred for treatment for post traumatic stress disorder following the incident with Frayne.

Frayne, of Dale Street, South Bank, was jailed for 40 months in July after admitting wounding both Whitehead and the woman.

York Crown Court heard last month how he injured her after she rejected his kiss in Whitehead’s absence. On Whitehead’s return the two men fought.