Thug jailed after punching man who sold girlfriend dodgy motor

Albert Mashoko had already been given a three-month suspended prison sentence for beating up his ex-partner when he carried out the second assault. And at Warwick Crown Court last week, that sentence was activated along with a new consecutive two-month term.

Prosecuting, Mr Nicholas Smith said the suspended sentence had followed an attack on 26-year-old Mashoko's ex-partner at her home in Lockley Close, Heath Town, where they lived with their one-year-old daughter, in December 2013.

She was in the kitchen preparing their daughter's milk when Mashoko, who now lives in Robin Hood Road, Coventry, walked in saying he needed a bank card and began going through her handbag looking for it.

When he could not find it, he lost his temper and went upstairs where he punched a wall before coming back down and punching her to the face a couple of times, pushing her to the floor and dragging her upstairs by her hair. He punched her again, hit her over the head with a plastic bin and began to strangle her before she managed to escape.

When Mashoko was later arrested, he claimed he had acted in self-defence and had been restraining her.

Mr Smith said Mashoko was still subject to the suspended sentence when, on May 23, he was in the Three Horseshoes pub in Coventry with his new girlfriend.

They saw a man who had previously sold her a car with which there had been problems, and Mashoko's girlfriend became annoyed and threw her drink over him.

Mr Smith said: "He did not react to that, but the defendant then went up to him and punched him in the face, causing a cut to his lip."

Mashoko left with his girlfriend and got into a taxi, which was stopped by police who arrested Mashoko who told them he had paid the man a further £200 to fix the car his girlfriend had bought.

But the problem had still not been sorted out, and he accepted that when he saw the seller in the pub he lost his temper and punched him.

Of the assault in the pub, Amy Jackson, defending, said: "He accepts he lost his cool. There was a history of a faulty car being sold to his partner.

"He and his partner had been to the police who referred them to trading standards, but they were not getting anywhere."

Mashoko was due to finish his final year of a business studies degree, she said.

Jailing him for a total of five months after he pleaded guilty to common assault, Recorder Adrian Redgrave told Mashoko: "This is not the first time you have used violence against other people.

"But to your credit is your plea of guilty, and that reduces the sentence."