A man who breached the requirements of his suspended sentence has been jailed for 12 months for criminal damage and assault.

George Stevens was convicted of assaulting his former partner during a night out in Blackpool where he also smashed her phone on the ground and threw it away from her.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Stevens, of Edgworth Grove, Burnley, had agreed to go on a night out to Blackpool with his ex, saying his behaviour had changed after the breakdown of their three-year relationship.

During the night on March 3, she received a text message from somebody else asking if she was ‘out’ and she showed Stevens that message.

Prosecuting, Stephen Parker said this was the catalyst for the incident, with Stevens becoming “jealous and abusive” after reading the message and using derogatory terms towards her.

After leaving the club, Stevens continued to be aggressive which led to his former partner calling 999, but she did not get further than the question of which service she required before the phone was snatched out of her hand by Stevens and she was pushed into the metal shutters of a nearby business.

A few minutes after getting up, she tried to get away from Stevens, and at that point CCTV showed him throwing the phone on the ground and then putting his foot on top of it. He then picked it up and threw it over the pedestrian barriers at the side of the road and onto the street.

In a witness statement summarised in court, the victim said the relationship with Stevens was now over.

This offence occurred during a period where Stevens was already serving a 15-month suspended sentence for launching an attack on a man with a baseball bat.

Due to the breach, Judge Sara Dodd sentenced Stevens to 12 months in prison and handed him a restraining order against his latest victim for three years.