A DRUNKEN 21-year-old who punched a woman ambulance worker has been jailed for five months ordered to pay her £500 compensation.

When he appeared before Medway magistrates, 21-year-old Christopher Beard, of Granville Road, Gillingham, was told by chairman Gerald Bartlett: "This was a particularly cowardly, vicious and calculated attack of the sort that thugs and bully boys are wont to use. This bench has had enough of thugs like you and bully boys like you."

Railway employee Beard had admitted punching Mandy Taylor on the side of the head after she had put him in the ambulance, giving her a swollen left eye and cheek. Ms Taylor and a fellow woman crew member had arrived at Cornwall Road in Gillingham on January 23 to find Beard lying on the pavement with cuts on his head. They helped him into the ambulance but then he wanted to leave.

Kumud Singh, prosecuting, said: "Ms Taylor held one of his arms as he got out the ambulance so he wouldn't fall. She said he was drunk and unsteady on his feet. As he climbed out he rammed his knee into her stomach and started mouthing off at her. As Ms Taylor turned to go back to the ambulance she was punched to the side of the head and knocked off her feet."

David Nelson, defending, said Beard had drunk at least six cans of lager and two scotch and cokes that night, and had previously been set upon in the street and knocked unconscious.

He said: "My client accepts that this was a very serious offence, and he has always felt great remorse and felt disgusted with himself about what he did." He was unconscious when the ambulance arrived, Mr Nelson told magistrates.

He said: "He can remember nothing that happened in the incident.The only way he can explain what happened is that when he came round, a combination of his intoxicated state and the blow he had received to the head meant he thought he was still under attack."