A VODKA drinker has been jailed for attacking his pregnant girlfriend and dragging her around by her hair.

Patrick McCafferty pushed over his terrified victim and told her it did not matter what happened to her unborn child because he was not the father.

He went on to assault a policeman whom he dragged into a flower bed in a headlock as he tried to arrest him outside a supermarket in Newton Abbot.

McCafferty has a history of violence which dates back to his childhood in care homes and warned his victim that if she called the police ’it would be a case of murder’.

McCafferty, aged 26, of Woodland Avenue, Kingskerswell admitted battery, assault on police, and breaching a suspended sentence and was jailed for ten months by Judge Graham Cottle at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: ’Your partner was six months pregnant and at the time you were under the influence of drink. You became violent, throwing food at her, trying to slap her and pushing her back onto the floor.

’She was pregnant at the time and that is a serious aggravating factor. She was screaming at you not to injure her unborn child.’

Mr Brian Fitzherbert, prosecuting, said the attack took place at about 8.30pm on May 24 when McCafferty had been drinking vodka, and an argument started.

He threw food at his victim, pulled her hair so hard that lumps came out, tried to bang her head against a wall and pushed her violently backwards onto the wooden floor.

He said: ’She screamed at him to stop because of her unborn baby. He ignored that and replied that "the baby was not his, so who cares?".’

The victim took refuge in a bathroom with a housemate and McCafferty left but was found by police at Asda and struggled with the officers who arrested him, dragging one into a flower bed in a neck hold and refusing to let go until he was tasered.

Mr Paul Dentith, mitigating, said McCafferty had apologised for his actions. He had succeeded in abstaining from alcohol for some time but on this evening had been drinking while enjoying a warm evening in the garden of the shared home.

He said McCafferty had a very difficult upbringing in and out of care and had been introduced to drugs by his own mother when he was ten.

He said he had complied with other parts of his previous suspended sentence and been working successfully with the addiction service Rise.