A Monkton Swifts football player who attacked an opponent so violently he broke three bones with a single blow to the face has been jailed today (Friday).

Jadey Hearn, aged 31, admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm to West Dragons player Kern Cunningham during a match in Division Five of the Pembrokeshire Football League on October 17 last year.

Kevin Jones, prosecuting, told Swansea crown court that during the game Hearn was verbally aggressive towards other players, even to his own team mates.

About 35 minutes before the assault Mr Cunningham appealed to the referee for a penalty and Hearn called him a “cheating ****.”

Later in the game the two players clashed as Mr Cunningham, a swimming instructor, attacked the Monkton goal but according to the referee only minimal contact had been involved.

But as Mr Cunningham got to his feet Hearn knocked him out.

Hearn left the pitch even before the referee showed him a red card and later that day walked into a police station to admit what he had done.

Mr Cunningham was taken to Withybush hospital and then to a specialist unit at Swansea’s Morriston hospital where doctors diagnosed fractures to his eye socket, right cheek and nose.

There was a danger, said Mr Jones, that he could have lost his eyesight, although surgeons managed to save it.

Metal plates were used to rebuild the eye socket but Mr Cunningham still suffered the effects six months later.

Mr Jones said Hearn, of Long Mains, Monkton, already had three convictions for violence and a further three cautions.

Hearn’s barrister, Aubrey Sampson, said he had delivered a single blow “in a moment of madness, in the heat of the moment.”

The Judge, Mr Recorder Peter Rouch, said it had been a disgraceful attack committed on a sports field.

Hearn, he added, had not learned anything from his previous convictions for violence.

Hearn, a scaffolder, was jailed for 15 months.