A COLLEGE lecturer has been acquitted of punching his former pregnant colleague lover in the stomach after it was claimed she refused to have an abortion.

Stephen Lewis walked away from Cardiff Crown Court a free man after the jury of four men and eight women cleared him of assault.

The 39-year-old head of the school of engineering at Coleg Gwent's Newport’s Nash College had denied attacking his fellow lecturer.

It had also been alleged during the five-day trial that Mr Lewis had struck his three-month pregnant now ex-girlfriend in the mouth drawing blood and that he had threatened to kill her.

Mr Lewis, of Hafodyrynys, was cleared of two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He maintained he had acted in self-defence.

Giving evidence, the defendant said he “never suggested” that he wanted the woman to have an abortion and claims he was “very supportive”.

He was described in witness statements made on his behalf, read to the court by his barrister Susan Ferrier, as “polite, professional and courteous”.

The jury were told that Mr Lewis was a man of “good character” with no previous convictions.

They heard the defendant, who was already in a long-term relationship with another woman, took the pregnant complainant out for dinner in Cardiff Bay to discuss parenting plans.

The jury were told the pair had argued and he claimed he was attacked by her as he drove her home and attempted to filter onto the M4 motorway.

Mr Lewis said: “She was trying to get an answer out of me. I was saying, ‘I’m not comfortable about coming to your house’. She didn’t like it. She became cold and frosty.”

He said the woman becoming “irate” and quizzed him about where his commitments lay.

“I wasn’t responding to her and I told her I wasn’t going to get involved in this kind of conversation while she was like that," Mr Lewis told the court.

“She started shouting at me because I wasn’t responding to her. She turned to face me in her seat and she just kept shouting. Then she pushed me in the head."

He added: “Then she hit me. She hit me in the head with her fist about six times in total."

The complainant is then alleged to have spat at Lewis, who admitted striking out at her with his hand last June.

Mr Lewis said: “I lashed out and made contact with her face."

He said the complainant demanded to be let out of the car but he refused, saying: “I’m not just going to leave a pregnant woman on the motorway at night” before driving her home.

As she made her way into her house the defendant told how the alleged victim turned to him and said: “I’m going to get you ******* done for this. This baby is going to grow up to hate you, I’ll make sure of that.”

After the jury returned their not guilty verdicts, the judge, Recorder Catherine Richards, told Mr Lewis he was free to leave the dock.

She also rejected a non-conviction restraining order application made against him by the prosecution.