An Ipswich man who hit a teenage girl over the head with a saucepan and then attacked her with a meat cleaver has been jailed for three years.

Ashmar Levy flew into a rage when he saw his bike had been knocked over while he was visiting his mother’s house in Glamorgan Road, Ipswich, a court heard.

He shouted at some children who were in the area and when he was challenged about his behaviour by a girl who was 14 or 15, he hit her over the head with a saucepan, causing a cut to the top of her head which started bleeding.

Levy was rugby-tackled to the ground by a man who witnessed the incident, and Levy then picked up a meat cleaver and tried to strike the girl in the face with it, Mark Eldridge, prosecuting, told the court.

By this time, the girl had started feeling dizzy from the blow to her head and was lying on the floor and as Levy tried to attack her with the meat cleaver, she had put up her hand to defend herself.

The blow from the meat cleaver landed on the back of her hand - causing an 8cm cut which needed three stitches.

Mr Eldridge said Levy was about to strike the girl again when the man who had rugby-tackled him earlier came to her aid and dragged him away.

Levy, 26, of Burrell Road, Ipswich, denied wounding the girl with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm on May 5 2019, but on what was to have been the first day of his trial on Monday, he admitted a less serious offence of unlawful wounding which was accepted by the prosecution.

Levy also admitted breach of a suspended sentence and was jailed for a total of 36 months.

Judge Emma Peters banned levy from contacting the victim of the attack or going to her home for five years and described what he did as an “extraordinarily gross reaction”.

Jude Durr for Levy accepted the attack on the girl had happened in the presence of children.

He said Levy was remorseful and “wasn’t proud of what he did".