A 35-year-old man was sentenced to three years in prison for stabbing his live-in companion in November.

Kenneth Simmons, of Pitts Bay Road, arrived home on November 27 in a drunken state and proceeded to stab his female companion in the back.

The woman was taken to the hospital but the injury was not life threatening.

Simmons pleaded guilty and a social inquiry report and psychiatric evaluation were ordered.

Last week in Magistrates? Court, Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner said the psychiatric report found Simmons to be mentally stable.

Simmons asked for leniency because he was a single father with custody of his son and did not want the child to end up in foster care.

Mr. Warner said while he took Simmons circumstances into account he had no choice but to incarcerate him because he had a previous conviction for violence against a woman and breaching a protection order.

He sentenced Simmons to three years in prison, with time already spent at Westgate taken into consideration, and two years probation.