A FAMILY caravanning weekend ended in violence when a woman was attacked by her husband because she wouldn't sleep with him, a court heard.

Blackburn magistrates were told that Paul Chadwick-Wood kicked his wife of 13 years out of bed.

When Gillian slapped him he grabbed her face and then repeatedly punched her in the face and ribs as she curled up on the floor trying to protect herself.

Chadwick-Wood, 38, of Whiteash Lane, Oswaldtwistle, was convicted of assault causing actual bodily harm after a trial. District judge Paul Firth ordered him to 150 hours' community punishment and pay £200 compensation and £150 costs for what he described as a "sustained physical assault."

The court heard that the couple and their two children were spending the weekend at the Three Rivers Caravan Park, West Bradford, in October when the incident occurred. They had been in the club house and both had been drinking.

Mrs Chadwick-Wood said they returned to the caravan and put the children to bed. She said everything was fine until her husband made a demand for sex.

"I told him I was too tired and wanted to go to sleep," she said.

Stephen Parker, defending, said the couple's relationship had been on a downward spiral for some time and since the incident they had separated and were now divorced.

"This was a one-off isolated offence where the aggrieved has conceded they were both in drink," said Mr Parker.

"I think it was the last straw in the relationship but if it hadn't been that it would have been something else."