A young thug who carried out a vicious assault on his 16-year-old partner in Alexandria – and then spent eight months defying the courts' attempts to punish him – has been locked up for 17 months.

Twenty-two year-old Antonio Ross was jailed this week after racking up a string of curfew and bail breaches following his original conviction.

Ross was given a community payback order at Dumbarton Sheriff Court last December after pleading guilty to seizing his partner by the hair, neck and head at Rosshead House in March 2015, hitting her on the head, causing her head to collide with a wall, pulling and pushing her on the body and pushing her to the ground.

At that hearing Ross, of Park Court in Clydebank, had also admitted shouting, swearing and behaving aggressively towards his partner and other passengers on a train from Balloch to Dumbarton East.

But Ross was back in court on July 21 to face sentencing on charges of twice failing to appear at the court, of breaching a bail condition by being in his partner's company, and of failing to comply with a curfew confining him to his home address between 7pm and 7am.

The most recent cases had come before the court on July 4, when the presiding sheriff called for background reports.

Ross's solicitor, Scott Adair, said: “That report is now available, and it gives the option of a community disposal, but he recognises the chances of that happening are slim to none.

“He understands his sentence will be of quite some length.”

Mr Adair also told the court Ross's original assault conviction was his first offence and that he had pleaded guilty to the latest charges at the earliest opportunity.

But Sheriff William Gallacher told Ross: “You have appeared before me on far too many occasions.

“The report suggests there are community based options which could have been appropriate, but you have repeatedly failed to comply and failed to appear and then further offended.

“I cannot do anything other than impose a sentence of a custodial nature.”