A MAN armed himself with a knife before throwing two house bricks through a front door in a drug-fuelled rage after his girlfriend finished with him.

Andrew Payne from Tredegar confronted the woman and her family who “feared for their lives” the day after she told him their three-year relationship was over.

He had earlier threatened her that she “was going to have it” unless she talked to him, Cardiff Crown Court was told.

Payne then marched to a house in Tredegar where his ex, her mother and his former girlfriend’s daughter were and where they had locked the doors.

William Bebb, prosecuting, said: “She was in the kitchen and she saw the defendant coming down the front steps.

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“She describes him as punching the front glass of the front door and then went to the side of the house and returned to the front door holding a black handled kitchen knife.

“The defendant then picked up a wooden fence pole and hit the front door.

“The next thing she knew two house bricks came flying through the front door completely shattering all of the glass.”

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Mr Bebb added: “She ran to the front door to try and get the defendant away from the house.

“At this point he was holding the kitchen knife in his hands.

“Her mother ran to the living room and called 999 describing being in fear for her and her family’s lives and she kept shouting towards him.

“The defendant was shouting at the woman that she was a liar and a cheat.”

Payne left but was soon arrested after police arrived at the scene.

He told officers he had been on a “drugs binge” and taken crack cocaine and cocaine.

The court was told the couple have reconciled since the incident early in the new year.

Payne, 44, of Gainsborough Road, Cefn Golau, Tredegar, pleaded guilty to affray and possession of a bladed article in public.

These offences put him in breach of a community order for assaulting police officers last year.

The defendant had 18 previous convictions for 29 offences which included assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray.

Jeffrey Jones, mitigating, said Payne, who appeared in court via a video link from Cardiff Prison, had spent the near equivalent of a 12-month jail sentence.

The defendant had been remanded in custody since his arrest in January.

His barrister added how his client, who had suffered from mental health issues, was now drug and alcohol free.

Judge Timothy Petts told Payne: “Fuelled by drugs, this was a nasty incident during which you forced your way into your ex-partner’s mother’s home.”

Despite the seriousness of the offences he added that there was “a realistic prospect of rehabilitation”.

Payne was jailed for 14 months, suspended for two years.

He was made the subject of a 20-day rehabilitation activity requirement, a six-month drug rehabilitation activity requirement and ordered to attend 30 sessions of a “Building Better Relationships” programme.

The defendant must pay a victim surcharge.

The court ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the knife.