A MAN used a crutch to attack his wife after the couple got into a row.

Mary Kay was using crutches as she had fallen and broken her pelvis two weeks before the argument with her husband, Raymond, in which he broke her wrist with the crutch, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.

She responded by using the other crutch to hit him over the head.

The court heard Kay, of Penfold Close, Clacton, was under a restraining order at the time to keep away from his wife, but she encouraged him to visit her at her home near Felsted, on May 12 this year.

Kay, 63, admitted causing his wife actual bodily harm and was given a two-year community order and two years supervision.

The court heard he had served the equivalent of a year in prison while on remand for the assault.

Prosecutor Richard Stevens said the couple had alcohol problems and Kay received a minor head injury in the incident.

Mr Stevens said Kay had previous convictions for hitting his wife with a wine glass and biting her nose.

Richard Kelly, mitigating, said Kay remembers little after he was hit with the crutch. They had both been drinking at the time, he said.