A SOUTHAMPTON man, who hurled a glass tumbler at his girlfriend which struck her in the back, has been jailed for 20 months at the city crown court.

Richard Phillips and his girlfriend Marie Collins had been at a local pub watching England play in a World Cup football match before returning to his flat, where he suddenly threw a glass of water over her.

She retaliated by throwing a cup of cold tea at him but missed, but then Phillips grabbed the tumbler and threw it from a range of about 9ft, striking her to the left of her spine.

Prosecutor Richard Willcox said Marie screamed in pain and fell to her knees.

"I thought he had really hurt me," she later told the police. "I was paralysed from the pain."

Phillips then realised how badly she had been hurt and tried to help her to her feet, repeatedly apologising.

Ms Collins said the walk home from his flat normally took 40 minutes but because of the pain it took more than an hour-and-a-half. She was in pain for about a week and suffered back spasms.

Phillips, 34, of Denzil Avenue, was convicted by magistrates of causing actual bodily harm and committed to the city crown court for sentence.

Judge Derwin Hope heard Phillips was in breach of two community sentences which had been imposed for two previous assaults on Ms Collins.

He told Phillips, who had 11 previous convictions for assaults on partners or ex-partners: "I have no doubt your latest violence is so serious that only an immediate term of imprisonment can be justified. You have shown no remorse for what you have done."

Urging the court to pass a suspended sentence with an order to undergo a domestic violence programme, Barry McElduff in mitigation said that the offence was at the lower end of the scale.