A DAD-to-be has been jailed after attacking his pregnant girlfriend when she laid a ‘honeytrap’ to prove he was cheating.
Thomas Calder grabbed the woman by the throat, threw her onto a bed and punched her in the face after she confronted him about meeting someone else.
The 23-year-old had agreed to go out with another woman who sent him a message on Facebook.
But the message had been sent by one of his girlfriend’s male friends posing to be a female admirer.
Calder, of no fixed abode, was found guilty of assault after a trial at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court that he failed to turn up for.
After the case was proved in his absence, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He appeared at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court yesterday, where he was jailed for six months.
John McGlone, prosecuting, told the court the attack happened at the victim’s South Shields home at 11pm on February 1.
He said: “The couple have been together since March last year.
“On the night in question they argued about him seeing another girl that he met over Facebook.
“When she put it to him, he grabbed her by the throat and dug his nails into her neck.
“She retaliated by doing the same thing, and he called her fat and said he hoped the baby would die.”
Calder then shoved her on the bed and straddled her chest before punching her above her left eye.
Mr McGlone added: “She scratched and bit him until he got off then ran outside to call her friend and the police.”
Ian Cassidy, defending, said: “She had become jealous and engineered a situation where one of her male friends sent a message to my client purporting to be a female who was interested in him.
“He responded and she challenged him about it.
“She told him to leave, and because he wasn’t fully dressed at the time, he refused and they argued.
“She has admitted retaliating, but it was him who started the violence.”