A drunk who throttled a woman outside a city centre gym had also been caught urinating and moving gnomes in a stranger’s garden.

Bogulsaw Bajorski, 44, had been arrested a week earlier for having a knife in his pocket during the gnome incident when, on May 4, three people saw that he had his hands around the neck of a woman outside Pure Gym.

He was also seen shouting at the woman before punching her in the face three times, Oxford Crown Court heard.

Despite claiming through his barrister last week that the woman was not his partner and their relationship was purely ‘platonic’, Bajorski had told brave members of the public who intervened: “It’s alright, it’s my wife.”

On April 30, police had been called to the same man after a homeowner reported that he was asleep in their driveway in Donnington Bridge Road.

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Prosecuting, Jack Wright said: “The owner indicated to officers he had been moving garden ornaments and urinating in the driveway.” It was later clarified the ornaments were gnomes.

Bajorski was ‘very drunk’ and unable to give the police officers any details about himself.

They were trying to help him find his ID when they found a knife inside the left pocket of his jacket. “Officers have removed this knife just as he has been seen to take the handle of it,” the prosecutor said.

Mitigating, Bethan Chichester detailed her client’s tragic childhood, which saw him move on with a ‘severely alcoholic’ uncle after the deaths of his mother and brother in a car accident.

He had moved to the UK from Poland and worked as a mechanic, although he had experienced homelessness and heavy drinking. Bajorski had been in custody on remand since the start of May.

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The defendant, of Bayswater Road, Oxford, pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to common assault, intentional strangulation and possession of a bladed article.

Judge Maria Lamb imposed an 18 month community order as a direct alternative to custody.

“You are over 40 years of age now and you still don’t know how to handle alcohol and you still don’t know how to treat other people with respect,” she said.

As part of the order, he must do 120 hours of unpaid work and almost 40 rehabilitation activity requirement sessions.

The judge said: “I bear in mind that if I order you to serve that sentence immediately today, having done as you have done, a significant period in custody, you wouldn’t be spending in prison the sort of length of time which is required to make sure you didn’t act like this in the future.

“So, I am making as a direct alternative to immediate custody a community order, which means that if you breach it there will be marked on this file the fact that it was an alternative to direct custody,

“So, if you break the conditions here you know very clearly where you will be going; straight back to prison and all bets in relation to the sentence are off.”