A VIOLENT yob who threatened a man with a knife on a garage forecourt and attacked his then partner has been jailed for two years and 13 weeks.

Burnley Crown Court heard Wesley Hall, 27, who was in breach of a suspended jail term for assaulting a man, also racially abused a taxi driver.

Hall, who has almost 50 previous convictions, admitted racially aggravated criminal damage, possessing cannabis, battery, threatening or abusive words or behaviour, possessing a bladed article and had been committed for sentence by magistrates after being convicted of common assault.

Judge Heather Lloyd told the defendant, of Buccleuch Road, Nelson, knives could cause devastation and vulnerable victims needed protection.

The judge also imposed a restraining order, banning Hall from having contact with Denise Heath or entering Philips Lane, Colne.

Alex Simmonds, prosecuting, said last July a man and his fiancee were at a petrol station when the man approached the defendant to talk to him.

Hall was abusive and got out of the vehicle, brandishing a knife.

He was jabbing the blade at the victim and told him: “I will cut you and I will smash your face with a hammer.”

Last April Miss Heath, who was Hall’s partner at the time and would say he was possessive and jealous, was in bed when he turned up at her home.

Hall asked which men had been there and threatened to smash her nose.

He then dragged her off the bed to the floor by her hair as she screamed.

As she put on her dressing gown, the defendant grabbed the victim’s jaw, twisted her head back and spat in her face.

Martin Hackett, for Hall, said he accepted the court had no alternative but to send him to custody.