A MALE model formerly known as one of Brighton’s worst teenagers has been jailed for breaking his girlfriend’s jaw.

Korrel Kennedy, of Brunswick Place, Hove, was sentenced to four years in prison last Friday after being found guilty of grievous bodily harm and theft.

The 22-year-old punched Bonnie Caroll during a night out on August 31 last year and was arrested while with her at hospital the next day.

He had pleaded not guilty to that and one count of theft but was convicted by a jury at Lewes Crown Court.

At age 14 Kennedy was dubbed one of “the most problematic” young people in Brighton by a police officer, due to his criminal and anti-social behaviour.

After getting an anti-social behaviour order he wrote a letter to The Argus apologising for his actions, saying they had given him a “wake-up call”.

He then appeared to be turning his life around after being spotted by a model scout while having a tattoo.

The good-looker has modelled for top magazines such as Dazed and Confused and i-D, as well as on the catwalk for elite fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier.

But in 2011 he was jailed for two and a half years after brandishing a knife while chasing a man in the city centre, and threatening medics and staff at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. At a pre-trial hearing for this latest offence against his girlfriend, the judge granted dock officers’ requests for him to be handcuffed because they feared he might try to run away.

The court heard how he hit his girlfriend in the jaw while they were arguing in a takeaway during a night out.

She woke up the next day to find her jaw broken and him telling her, “I am so sorry, I will never lay a finger on you ever again”, the court heard.

He was on bail for being ‘forceful’ towards his girlfriend on an earlier occasion when he was arrested for this offence, the court heard.

He was handed three and a half years in prison for the grievous bodily harm and six months for the theft.

‘Wake-up call’ not enough to save Kennedy from himself

REELING off the criminal and yobbish acts to which the then teenager had subjected his community, prosecutor Simon Court described Kennedy as the “hallmark of a young man who will end up in prison”.

That was in 2007 when the 14-year-old was banned from swathes of his home town for behaviour including criminal damage, sexual assault and assaulting police officers.

His single mother told the court of her difficulties in controlling the wayward youngster, and soon after he wrote a heartfelt letter to The Argus insisting he had “seen the error of his ways”. Telling readers some of the reports of his behaviour were untrue, he added: “I feel this has given me the wake-up call I needed and as fro#m now I am going to try my best to be a better person.

“I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to anyone I may have upset through my actions.

“I believe it’s time for a change and I will do my best to make right my wrongs.”

Yet despite the anti-social behaviour order, his apparent change of heart and a rapidly developing modelling career after he was spotted in a tattoo parlour, the unruly, violent Kennedy soon resurfaced.

By 2011 his convictions stood at 20 and he was finally jailed after getting caught on camera with a knife in his hand, chasing another man, and threatening hospital staff.

Even in Rochester Young Offenders’ Institution it seemed he could not shake the attention-seeking behaviour prosecutor Mr Court had identified years earlier, getting into trouble over pictures posted on Facebook showing him posing in his underwear in his prison cell.

His modelling career, which began at 15, only fuelled his bad-boy image, and he was frequently seen in brooding shots showing off his tattoo, in gritty urban scenes.

Having been jailed for an assault on his girlfriend – a new low – it remains to be seen whether a different Kennedy will emerge at the end of at least two years behind bars.