A THUG with a drink problem who broke a young care assistant's arm during the Millennium Eve celebrations has been jailed for two and half years.

Shaun Lerigo ran at Michelle Edwards in Hereford city centre as she tried to intervene in a fight between two revellers.

Her arm broke with a loud snap as he twisted it and surgeons had to insert a metal plate and six screws.

Grievous bodily harm

A jury at Worcester Crown Court convicted 23-year-old Lerigo, of Wyeside Gardens, Hay-on-Wye, of inflicting grievous bodily harm.

Prosecutor William Rickarby revealed that the defendant had a record for violence which included flagging down a car, kicking in the driver's door and beating him up in the road. He also headbutted a nightclub bouncer in another incident.

Jailing him, Judge Michael Mott said he had serious problems, which were all drink-related.

Miss Edwards left a nightclub with a group of pals to make her way into High Town to hear the clock strike midnight. But violence broke out between a male friend and another man and she bravely told them to stop trading blows.

As she turned away from them, drunken Lerigo charged at her and she put up her right arm to try and stop him.

He then grabbed her left arm and broke it. She fell to the ground screaming in pain.

Miss Edwards, who lost her job because of her serious injury, told the jury: "I was quite badly affected. I haven't been able to do a lot since."

Abusive Lerigo then struggled with police who witnessed his cowardly attack.

He broke free from one pair of handcuffs and had to be pinned against a wall while he was shackled again.

Lerigo lied that he hurt Miss Edwards in self-defence after she began hitting him from behind.

He claimed he had not drunk much after borrowing his mother's car to drive to Hereford.

Defence counsel Harry Baker decided not to ask for a pre-sentence report because he said a custodial sentence was inevitable.