A man has been jailed for four months for assaulting his girlfriend and cutting up her clothes.

David Launders was jealous when Pamela Aspinall told him she had been invited to a party, a court heard.

Richard Cherrill, prosecuting, said Launders took her keys and mobile phone and stopped her from leaving their flat in Wilbury Gardens, Hove, on November 22 last year.

Launders, 40, punched her on the nose, displacing her septum, and she will need an operation to repair it.

Mr Cherrill said: "He kept her there until the following day when he allowed her to go out for some fresh air.

"When she returned two hours later he had cut up her clothes causing damage estimated at £500."

Launders, from Shepperton, Surrey, changed his plea to guilty to common assault and causing criminal damage when he was due to appear for trial at Hove Crown Court yesterday.

The court was told Launders is currently on remand for allegedly breaching an anti-social behaviour order. It was imposed by Brighton magistrates who earlier this year heard he spent a year harassing girlfriends and also staff at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.