A MOTHER OF THREE smashed a glass into the face of her partner after he threw a pint of beer over her.

Zena Reeves met her unemployed partner in the Osborne pub in Shirley where he had been drinking and an argument flared, Winchester Crown Court was told.

She had found out he had been spending money on her credit card and had been largely ignoring her for the night, Daniel Riley said on her behalf.

Later that night Reeves then retaliated intending to throw her drink over him but instead making contact between the glass and his face.

The court heard the injury required 16 stitches to his nose but that despite this her partner did not want to cooperate with the investigation, telling police he had caused the incident on January 5 and asking to take the blame himself.

Mr Riley said Reeves, who pleaded guilty to a charge of causing grievous bodily harm, had become dependent on alcohol since the break-up of her marriage five years earlier.

He explained that her then husband had taken up a short term contract to work in Poland and had simply never come back having met another woman there.

Since then Reeves had become more dependent on alcohol and began committing offences which totalled five previous convictions for battery.

Judge Jane Miller QC told Reeves she was very lucky the injury was not more serious "you could have very easily left him blinded in one eye," she told the defendant.

Reeves, of King George's Avenue, Southampton was sentenced to 16 months in prison suspended for two years, ordered to attend an alcohol treatment order for six months and carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.

In passing sentence Judge Miller told Reeves; "This is your last chance."