IPSWICH: A teenager who hit his ex-girlfriend’s new partner with a baseball bat after forcing the car he was in to stop on a busy road has been locked up for 12 months.

Jordan Green overtook a Ford Fiesta in which Jamie Mayes was a passenger near the Copdock interchange and then braked sharply causing the car to drive into the back of his Audi, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

Shocked bystanders then saw 19-year-old Green and Jamie Pinder, also 19, get out of the car armed with a baseball bat and a metal bar.

Jed Mitchell, who had been driving the Fiesta, ran off and Green and Pinder smashed the windows of the car while Mr Mayes, who was going out with Green’s ex-girlfriend Megan Godbold, was still sitting inside it.

Simon Gladwell, prosecuting, said Mr Mayes told police Green had smashed the passenger window where he was sitting with a baseball bat and had struck him three times on the head.

Mr Mayes had shielded his face with his hand and had been struck with the bat causing a fracture to his wrist.

Green, of Emperor Circle, Ipswich, admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm on Mr Mayes on August 11 last year and was sentenced to 12 months’ detention in a young offenders’ institution. He was also banned from driving for 12 months.

Pinder, of Cambridge Road, Kesgrave, admitted criminal damage to the Ford Fiesta, which suffered �500 damage and was a write-off. He was sentenced to two months’ detention in a young offenders’ institution.

Sentencing Green, Judge John Holt said he was satisfied he had deliberately braked sharply in front of the Ford Fiesta resulting in it hitting the back of his car.

He said Green had smashed windows of the Fiesta including the passenger window where Mr Mayes was “trapped defenceless” and had hit him several times with a baseball bat.

Andrew Shaw, for Green, said his client had been upset when he and Miss Godbold had split up shortly before the incident and now realised he should not have acted in the way he did. The couple were now reconciled and Miss Godbold was expecting a baby in August.

Ian Persaud, for Pinder, said he realised his behaviour had been completely unacceptable.