An ‘arrogant bully’ who headbutted his ex-wife has been jailed.
Milton Keynes man Bernard La Pierre, 55, had travelled to the woman’s home in Bicester from where he lived on May 1 last year.
An assault on another individual, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was caught on camera then fuming La Pierre left the property.
But he returned to headbutt his ex in the face, striking her so hard that he broke her nose.
In a victim impact statement, his former wife said she had to take a fortnight off work and the assault left her ‘very stressed and emotionally drained’.
At the time of the attack he was on licence after his release from a prison sentence for causing actual bodily harm.
That attack had seen him and another man pose as utilities board workers to trick their way into the victim’s home and assault him.
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La Pierre, of Bletchley, Milton Keynes, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing actual bodily harm and common assault.
Jailing him for 20 months at Oxford Crown Court last week, Judge Maria Lamb said: “This was in the home of your former partner, towards you former partner, at a time when you were on licence, committed by a man who is no stranger to violence.”
She added: “You were fired up, in my view, but your inflated sense of your own self-worth.
“You didn’t like the way you’d been spoken to. You took exception to it. And the video clip that all have seen illustrates all too clearly your mood.
“Your behaviour was that of an arrogant bully.
“You left the house and you then burst back into that house and headbutted your former partner in the face, hard enough to break her nose.”
Judge Lamb suggested that La Pierre could have been charged with the more serious offence of GBH.
“What you did was break her nose and, arguably, commit an offence which caused injuries which were on the borderline of causing grievous bodily harm,” she said.
In mitigation, La Pierre was said to be a carer for his current partner, who suffered from a number of health conditions.
He also supported a number of other people in the community, defence brief Jonathan Stone told the court.
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