A TWENTY-EIGHT year old man who attacked his fiancee and left her for dead in a pool of blood only hours after they got engaged was rebuked by a judge for shirking on his unpaid work order.

Steven Webley, formerly of Cinderford, now of Bowens Hill Road, Coleford, had failed to turn up for unpaid work and supervision sessions imposed on him in April, Gloucester Crown Court heard.

He had given a variety of excuses from falling off his bike to getting a stomach ailment from eating toast, said Judge Jamie Tabor QC.

The judge warned Webley that if he flouts the terms of his 10 months suspended jail sentence again in any way and does not get on with the 200 hours unpaid work he will be locked up.

Webley received the sentence in April this year when he pleaded guilty at Newcastle Crown Court to assaulting new fiancee Stephanie Borrowdale, 27, causing her actual bodily harm and doing criminal damage.

He was summoned to Gloucester Crown Court earlier this week for breaching the terms of his sentence but he did not attend and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Judge Tabor told Webley that he rejected his excuses and added: “You will have to pay the £70 costs of the probation service in bringing this to court. I am not going to send you to prison today. You are getting a big chance here. You are not going to get another chance."

Full story will be published in The Forester, on August 17.