Soldier launched axe attack after finding out unborn baby was a girl

Ross Wilkinson snapped after realising Chloe Lavender had gone with her parents for a meal to celebrate the result of the hospital scan without him, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

Days earlier disputes with her father Richard had led to the 23-year-old to be asked to leave the family's home in Lilac Road, Dudley where he had lived for around six months.

The defendant, who left the army after two years when aged 18, sent a text message to her mother during the meal that warned: "Don't push me out of my baby's life. It's my baby too."

This led to him having a phone argument with Chloe that prompted him to go to the family's home with an axe in a plastic bag and 'sort things out' shortly after midnight on June 10.

He leapt over the fence into the garden where Mr Lavender was smoking a cigarette, grabbed him round the throat and pushed him against the pebble-dashed wall of the house, explained Mr Trevor Jones, prosecuting.

A fight followed as both struggled to grab the bag which held the axe, during which Wilkinson received a bad cut to the back of his head, before Chloe managed to halt the melee. He left the scene only to return shortly afterwards to throw a piece of metal at a car belonging to the family. It missed its target.

The defendant told the court: "I was annoyed that Chloe and I had argued after having such a lovely day together and wanted to get it sorted. The family did not want me in a relationship with her and I was fed up with other people interfering in our business.

"Richard and I had a fight. I came off the worst but am just as much to blame as him."

Wilkinson, now of Spring Meadow, Dudley, admitted possession of an offensive weapon, assault and the unrelated burglary of a house in Wall Well, Halesowen on July 13.

He was made the subject of a restraining order banning any contact with Chloe or her parents and was locked up for a total of three years.