A 19-YEAR-OLD has been jailed for an attack on a motorist in a Tesco car park which left half his victim’s ear hanging off.

Thomas Douglas-Gilbert, of Hagbourne Road, Didcot, was sentenced to 40 weeks in prison after he was convicted of one count of causing actual bodily harm on April 28 last year.

He was found guilty of the offence along with his 20-year-old girlfriend Frankie Simmons after a trial in January at Oxford Crown Court where they both insisted they acted in self-defence.

But Judge Mary Jane Mowat, who presided over the trial and Monday’s sentencing hearing, said an independent witness had described what happened as a “vicious attack”.

She said the car containing the pair was reversing in the Tesco car park in Abingdon when motorist Daniel Wrench used his horn to let them know his vehicle was behind it.

This caused Simmons, of Sinodun Close, Long Wittenham, to become “worked up” so she got out of the vehicle and ended up scratching at her victim’s face while he was still in his car, the judge said.

Judge Mowat added that Douglas-Gilbert then went “so far over the top” in trying to protect his girlfriend that his attack left half of Mr Wrench’s ear hanging off and caused ligament damage to his shoulder.

The judge said she had also heard an earlier case involving Douglas-Gilbert when he was 15 in which he committed an assault in similar circumstances.

She told Simmons that because of the 10-month-old child she had with her co-defendant, she would spare her jail, instead sentencing her to a six-month community order with a curfew and ordered she pay £200 in compensation.

Douglas-Gilbert was given 40 weeks in prison and the defendants both broke down in tears when the sentence was read out.