A BURNLEY man who attacked a man he mistook for a love rival, causing a depressed cheek fracture, has escaped a jail term.

Nathan Beards, 27, punched Reece Hopkinson without warning as he sat in a car outside a house in the town’s Windsor Street, Burnley Crown Court heard.

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He believed that Mr Hopkinson was his former partner’s new boyfriend and also dragged his victim from the vehicle before kicking him two or three times as he lay defenceless on the ground, the court was told.

Beards, of Alexander Grove, Burnley, admitted to unlawfully wounding Mr Hopkinson on August 20 last year. He was given a 20-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to pay £500 compensation.

Passing sentence, Judge Beverley Lunt, said: “You are a grown man and you do not go around beating people up, even if this had been the boyfriend of your previous partner.”

Prosecutor John Stead said that Mr Hopkinson, in a victim impact statement, said that the incident was over in a matter of seconds.

In the wake of the attack, he now drove around with his doors locked and the windows rolled up, he added.

The attack came at a time when the victim was said to have been suffering from depression, and the violence had exacerbated his condition.

The court heard Mr Hopkinson had managed to escape from the scene and drive away to a friend’s house nearby. Beards managed to track him down and apologised for what he had done.

Beards had a number of previous convictions for assault and battery.

Richard Taylor, defending, said his client had now moved on from his previous partner and was in a new relationship. The author of his pre-sentence report had described the old pairing as a ‘dangerous combination’.

But the advocate told the court that Beards’ ‘ex’ had refused him access to their three young children ‘which is very difficult for him’.

Mr Taylor added: “He says that he is now happier than he has ever been," he is now longer taking drugs, and he has turned his life around.