A Warwick man who attempted to break into his ex-girlfriend’s home after finding her with another man has been handed a two-year suspended sentence of imprisonment.

Peter Nentwig, 30, will also face two years probation after admitting the charges in Magistrates’ Court last month, and will have to pay $170 in reparations for damaging his ex-girlfriend’s door handle.

The court hear that Nentwig and Tiffany Dawson had been going through an “on again, off again” relationship when he approached her home unannounced on the night of April 3, only to see through a window that she was in her bedroom with another man.

This, said Nentwig’s lawyer Saul Dismont, provoked Nentwig who in the heat of the moment attempted to gain entry to the home, and in the process damaged the handle to Ms Dawson’s kitchen door. Up until this point, said Mr Dismont, Nentwig had been “a welcome visitor” to Ms Dawson’s residence.

Ms Dawson asked him to leave but instead Nentwig went around to the residence’s back door where he was then confronted by the other man who brandished a baseball bat.

In Magistrates’ Court this morning, prosecutor Victoria Greening pointed out that Nentwig has a previous conviction of a similar nature against Ms Dawson, and as such argued that the only deterrent against Nentwig reoffending would be a period of imprisonment.

However, Mr Dismont challenged Ms Dawson’s victim impact statement, which he said attempted to portray a relationship that had already ended by the time Nentwig committed the offences.

The only mitigating factor for sentencing, said Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner, was that nobody was injured.

Mr Warner also ordered Nentwig to submit to court services and to stay away from Ms Dawson.