Divorcee admits hitting former wife 10 years after the couple split

Mar 28 2008 by Liz Keen, South Wales Echo

A SHIFT worker has been ordered to pay £300 compensation to the ex-wife he admitted hitting 10 years after they divorced.

When Mark Jones, 46, pleaded guilty to assaulting Deborah Jones it was his first brush with the law, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

Defence barrister Jane Rowley said it was a “blip” borne out of frustration and hurt by a man with an impeccable character.

“She said she’d told the children he didn’t care for them and that’s one of the most hurtful things for a man to hear,” she told the court.

The couple were married for 10 years and had been divorced another decade before they got into the argument which ended in violence.

Judge Christopher Llewellyn-Jones QC said Jones, of Woodland Terrace, Cwmparc, an employee at the former Revlon factory in Maesteg, accepted responsibility with his guilty plea to assault. He also said he recognised there were two sides to every situation. “What you did was unjustified,” he told the dad of two.

Judge Llewellyn-Jones sentenced Jones to 150 hours’ unpaid community work and made an order for £300 costs against him in addition to the compensation for Mrs Jones.