A DRUNK bit a police officer and lashed out at another with his feet after being arrested following a domestic disturbance.

Three police officers were required to restrain Robert Gibson following the row in St Oswald’s Street, Hartlepool, on October 10.

The 30-year-old had been given a five month suspended jail sentence less than a month earlier after grabbing another woman by the throat in Stanley, County Durham, and “banged her head off the wall”.

That too had been in a domestic-style situation.

Prosecutor Harry Hadfield told Teesside Crown Court police arrived at the house in Hartlepool to find Gibson’s partner, from whom he is now separated, with a cut to her mouth and a television had been pulled from a wall.

He said Gibson ignored instructions to remain with a police officer and a violent struggle ensued in which he ripped off the epaulettes from the uniform of one of the constables.

The three officers restrained him, but he kicked one officer twice to the body and bit the right forearm of another.

Gibson, of no fixed address, admitted actual bodily harm and assaulting a police officer.

Andrew Teate, mitigating said Gibson had a hazy recollection of events, having been drinking all day.

He said: "He accepts his actions were entirely stupid. He acts first and thinks later.”

Judge Deborah Sherwin said Gibson’s use of his mouth as a weapon was “particularly unpleasant”.

The judge activated Gibson’s five month suspended sentence and gave him eight further months prison, making 13 months in total.