A CONSTRUCTION worker who became jealous when his girlfriend began flirting in a pub had a "red mist" descend over him, a court heard.

Seconds later Ian Farmiloe, 42, attacked a man who could recall nothing until he woke up in the back of an ambulance.

Farmiloe, of John Street, Blackwood, was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment suspended for two years and made subject to a supervision order for two years after pleading guilty to causing Wayne Bevan actual bodily harm.

Judge Roderick Denyer, sitting at Newport crown court, told him: "I don't enter into the rights and wrongs of whether there was any flirting but even if there was it didn't justify the attack."

The offence, he said, occurred in September 2006 and he could not overlook "an unacceptable delay."

Formiloe, he said, pleaded guilty.

Prosecutor Nicola Powell said Mr Bevan went to the Plasnewydd pub in Bargoed and without warning Farmiloe attacked him. He fell to the floor.

Witnesses said the attack was "vicious and sickening" and Farmiloe was seen kicking him.

Mr Bevan was treated at Merthyr's Prince Charles Hospital for a suspected spine fracture and has ligament injuries.

He later told the police he was involved because Mr Bevan had "grinned at him."

Farmiloe's counsel Hashim Salman said: "He is acutely conscious that his behaviour was unacceptable.

"It was not premeditated but a moment of madness for which he apologises."

He said Farmiloe had been concerned about his girlfriend's flirtations behaviour. He claimed Mr Bevan had made an advance to her which was reciprocated at which point "the red mist" descended.