Cardiff ex-head teacher jailed for attack on wife

A shamed head teacher has been jailed for punching his wife to the ground and then kicking her in a jealous rage.

Kevin Thomas, 49, of Swansea, attacked wife Donna at their home in Fairwater, Cardiff, last November.

The attack came a month after he was sacked from his job following a conviction for groping a woman at his primary school.

Thomas denied the assault but was convicted at Cardiff Crown Court and jailed for nine months.

The court heard how he lost his £51,000-a-year job as head teacher at Glan-yr-Afon Primary School in Llanrumney, Cardiff, after he was convicted of sexual assault in October 2018.

Mrs Thomas stayed with her husband but he accused her of having an affair following a night out together at a pub on 24 November.

She told the court: "It was getting heated and I was trying to keep the peace.

"He was getting angry... saying I was sleeping around with people. He was calling me a 'slut' and a 'slag'.

"All I remember is him punching me in the head. I was laid out on the floor in the dark and he came in and started kicking me in the back."

Meirion Davies, defending, said: "This was a marriage already suffering difficulties. Both of them got into an argument, it got heated, it went too far.

"Their marriage is dead and must now be given a decent burial.

"This man has got to rebuild his life - not an easy prospect for him, given his recent history."

Judge Philip Harris-Jenkins told Thomas he had acted "abysmally".

He added: "This was a nasty assault.

"Your wife stuck by you during the course of the sexual assault trial but it seems the cracks in the marriage were already beginning to tell."

Thomas was also made the subject of a restraining order, banning him from contact with his wife for five years.