A young father who attacked his girlfriend’s ex-partner with a baseball bat in a residential street has avoided jail.

Gareth Livsey left their flat on Annie Street in Accrington armed with the bat after ‘drunk’ victim Jake Hothersall had arrived outside shouting abuse and threats and trying to force open their door.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Livsey’s partner Grace Leah was 26 weeks pregnant at the time and both ‘feared’ for their safety.

Livsey, 26, pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm and possessing an offensive weapon and was given a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months with 200 hours unpaid work and a 30-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

Recorder Ahmed Nadim said Livsey’s actions had ‘exceeded the legitimate bounds of self-defence’ and said he had taken the ‘exceptional course’ by not sending him straight to jail.

Tim Storrie, prosecuting, said the incident happened at around 11.30pm on June 27 last year and said that Mr Hothersall was ‘drunk, abusive and ungallant’ after turning up outside their flat.

He said: “This defendants reaction was to come outside straight away with a baseball bat. He used it to strike him in a number of ways and a number of injuries were inflicted.”

The court heard how Mr Hothersall suffered grazes to his eye brow and knees, swelling to his scalp, a 3cm cut to his head and a fractured little finger.

In an agreed basis of plea Livsey said both he and Miss Leah felt ‘threatened’ by Mr Hothersall and had he picked up the baseball bat and went outside to ‘tell him to leave the area’.

Mr Storrie said Mr Hothersall ‘labours under considerable psychological difficulties and deficits’ and that his behaviour ‘would be regarded by many as being mitigated by those difficulties’.

Mark Stuart, defending, said Livsey, now of Borough Avenue, Radcliffe, ‘very much regrets’ leaving the house and should have called the police.

He said: “The defendant was wholly unaware of the background and the relationship she had with Mr Hothersall.

“He had not gone out looking for trouble but Mr Hothersall came to their door shouting up and calling her names and being derogatory towards her. It was against that background picked up the bat in order to threaten him. He bitterly regrets that.”