A MAN broke in to a woman’s home and punched her in the face, before being restrained whilst topless and frothing at the mouth outside a pub.

Kane Watson, 24, of Long Mains in Monkton, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm after he appeared in a woman’s Pembroke Dock home in the middle of the night while high on drugs.

Prosecutor Harry Dickens said the victim was in bed with her husband when, at around 12.20am on March 30, they heard banging at their door and someone asking if anyone was there.

They got out of bed and saw the defendant standing about four foot away outside their bedroom.

“He said he was afraid and said ‘They’re going to get me’,” Mr Dickens said.

When she asked him what he was afraid of, he replied ‘Death. I’m afraid of death’.

Watson then stepped forward as if to head back downstairs, but then punched the woman in the face.

Her husband chased Watson out of the house, and she called the police. When officers arrived, the victim was described as “visibly shaken”, Mr Dickens said.

In a statement read to the court by the prosecutor, the victim said that she felt “vulnerable” following the incident and that it had left her “a bit of a mess”.

She said that she had previously felt safe leaving her door unlocked, but now has to check multiple times that it is locked.

“The defendant was detained by the public outside a public house,” Mr Dickens said. He added that Watson was “frothing at the mouth” and topless, and shouting that someone was chasing him.

He was arrested at 12.46am and taken to Withybush Hospital, where he admitted he had taken LSD.

The court heard that this offending put Watson, who has two previous convictions for two offences, in breach of a suspended sentence order.

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Stuart John, in mitigation, said: “The best place for him to start dealing with the problems which caused him to offend is in a custodial environment.

“He was under the influence of a cocktail of drugs and had various other issues.

“The defendant, at the time, really wasn’t himself.”

Mr John said Watson had already completed courses in prison on stress management, managing triggers, the impact of cannabis and cocaine use, and harm reduction.

He added that Watson had been in a drug-induced psychosis when he committed the offence and had not specifically targeted the house or the victim.

Sentencing Watson, Judge Huw Rees said: “You started drinking heavily. You took steroids to start bulking up.

"You hadn’t slept in three days and you took LSD for the first time.

“You do not remember what happened, save for your last memory was fighting with the police thinking the police were trying to kill you.

“It’s deplorable violence in the complainant’s own home.

“That sums up how much of a coward you are. Or how much drugs can make you a coward.”

He sentenced Watson to 14 months in prison – including 10 months for the assault and four months of the defendant’s suspended sentence being activated.

The victim was granted a five-year restraining order.