A CROSLAND Moor man has been jailed for punching a bank manager in the face.

Robert Lee, 22, of Balmoral Avenue, has been jailed for three years after admitting causing grievous bodily harm to Peter Hart.

Mr Hart was seriously injured in the attack at Lloyds TSB in Bradford city centre last September.

Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday how Lee had gone into the branch to withdraw some of his wages from his girlfriend’s account.

Cautious staff refused to process his request and prosecutor Dave Mackay said Lee became increasingly irate and manager Peter Hart told him he could not speak to his staff in that way.

Lee was said to have shouted at Mr Hart: “Come outside and I’ll slit your f****** throat.”

Mr Mackay said Lee refused to leave until he was told the police had been called and, as he did so, Mr Hart followed him and told him not to return.

“Lee turned round, walked back to Mr Hart and punched him once in the face knocking him to the floor” said Mr Mackay.

Mr Hart was taken to hospital where he was found to have suffered a fracture in the area around his left eye socket, a badly bruised left eye with some bleeding into the eye and a cut under the eyelid, which needed three or four stitches.

When Lee was arrested a couple of weeks after the attack, he was found to have a knife with a five-inch blade in his jacket pocket.

He was sentenced separately for possessing that knife by Huddersfield magistrates. But later, in October 2008, he terrified a 14-year-old girl when he approached her in the Sycamore Avenue area of Huddersfield, again carrying a knife.

During his arrest for that offence he lashed out in a police car causing damage to one of the vehicle’s windows.

, Lee was jailed yesterday after he admitted causing Mr Hart grievous bodily harm, possessing the bladed article when he approached the girl in the street and criminal damage to the police vehicle.

His barrister Glenn Parsons said Lee wanted to apologise to Mr Hart, who had simply been doing his job.

Mr Parsons said his client, who had been drinking, had fallen out with his pregnant girlfriend and had been caused a great deal of upset when she claimed the baby was not his.

He said the incident blew up on the spur of the moment but his client accepted he could have walked away.

Mr Parsons said Lee had not intended to cause such a serious injury.

Recorder David Bradshaw said: “It is a serious injury inflicted upon a man who was trying to do his work.

“He was going about his ordinary business trying to protect both his customers and his staff when you took exception to the fact that he wouldn’t allow you to withdraw money from your partner's account.”

Leewas jailed for two years for the attack on Mr Hart and sentenced to a consecutive term of one year in prison for the knife offence in Huddersfield.