A man has been jailed for 18 months following a "brutal, drunken and unprovoked attack" on his then girlfriend.

Adrian Asquith admitted causing actual bodily harm to Jane Martin on May 1 last year at the home they shared in Chillingworth Crescent, east Oxford.

Basil Hillman, prosecuting, told Oxford Crown Court yesterday that Asquith accused Miss Martin of being unfaithful before throwing her across the kitchen resulting in a head wound which required 12 stitches. Mr Hillman said: "As she was thrown she banged her head on the corner of a work surface.

"She was dazed. As she came round she realised blood was pouring from her head. She felt a hard kick to the lower part of her back and to the left side."

Mr Hillman said Asquith, 38, of Forrester Tower, Wood Farm, Oxford, had written to his former girlfriend apologising for the assault. Zoma Angelidez, defending, said: "He didn't mean the cut but he accepts his actions."

The court heard he had six previous convictions for violence dating back to March 1981 including one of assaulting his sister.

Judge Tom Corrie said: "With your record, for a brutal, drunken and unprovoked attack on a defenceless woman, the proper course is 18 months in prison."