A drunken joke led to a man losing five teeth in a vicious attack in a park, Worcester Crown Court heard.

The girlfriend of Nicholas Pinfield rang him on a mobile and pretended she was going to have sex with another man. Furious Pinfield raced to Sanders Park in Bromsgrove and smashed Terry Stansby in the face with a tree branch, said Nicolas Cartwright, prosecuting. Mr Stansby, a 33-year-old builder who had only been giving the woman a piggyback ride over wet ground, lost his teeth and needed 50 internal and external stitches in a badly cut lip.

Pinfield, aged 31, of Broad Street, Sidemoor, Bromsgrove, was jailed for 18 months. He pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding.

The woman was out with a group of friends on May 25 last year when she phoned Pinfield at home and invented the joke.

Pinfield had been before the courts on 43 previous occasions for 130 offences. Mr Cartwright said he was a prolific burglar and regularly drove while disqualified.

Defence counsel Michael Aspinall said he had been put under considerable pressure by a drunken woman. He was not a man prone to violence and did not use "thuggery" as an everyday means of dealing with people.

Judge David McEvoy QC said Pinfield had been "wound up" into committing the offence and added: "You made a terrible mess of this man. He will have to wear false teeth for the rest of his life."