A 48 year-old Dudley man has been jailed for six months after spurning the chance to keep his freedom.

Andrew Barker, of Merryfield Road, had been given a suspended prison sentence after punching and hitting a man with a bar stool following an argument in a Rowley Regis pub.

But Barker treated the sentence with a "cavalier" attitude as he repeatedly came up with excuses to avoid carrying out the 120 hours community punishment he had also been given for the assault.

At Wolverhampton Crown Court, Judge Rosalind Bush told Barker, who works as a shed builder for a firm in Amblecote, the sentence had been aimed at giving him the opportunity to turn his life around.

Activating the suspended prison sentence, the judge said: "The history of the order is dreadful. You have failed to comply time and again. You were given the order in February and you have done just four hours from the 120 hours.

"And two and a half hours of that four hours was simply the induction. You have not yet worked an entire day and obviously as far as you are concerned unpaid work is pointless."

Barker had been given the six month jail term suspended for two years for the assault and breaching a conditional discharge order.