A VIOLENT thug sent a string of gloating text messages to his ex-girlfriend after attacking her lover with a hammer.

Robert Jenner, 21, sank 20 cans of strong lager before viciously hitting his victim round the head with the weapon.

HAMMER TIME: Robert Jenner pictured outside Sevenoaks Magistrates Court on Tuesday, under charges of attacking a man with a hammer AH2505101/1
HAMMER TIME: Robert Jenner pictured outside Sevenoaks Magistrates Court on Tuesday, under charges of attacking a man with a hammer AH2505101/5
HAMMER TIME: Robert Jenner pictured outside Sevenoaks Magistrates Court on Tuesday, under charges of attacking a man with a hammer AH2505101/2

He then sent Emma Porter sick text messages boasting about the incident.

One read: "Has your mate got a sore head?" and another asked: "Did he like being hit by a hammer?"

Jenner, a pizza delivery worker from Southwood Road, Rusthall, was jailed for two years on Thursday for the attack on Alex Tootal.

He showed no emotion as the court heard he sent the gloating texts shortly after the incident.

Maidstone Crown Court was also told that on occasion he had sent his former partner up to 50 text messages at a time after she ended their two-year relationship.

On April 23, Jenner had consumed 20 cans of Stella Artois when he went round to Miss Porter's Grange Road home at around 5.30am.

It was here that he found Miss Porter in bed with Mr Tootal, having met him in a nightclub earlier.

Prosecuting, Jo Cope said: "He came into the bedroom, became aggressive and hit Mr Tootal on the right-hand side of his head."

An earlier hearing heard that a furious Jenner warned Mr Tootal: "I'm going to smash your face," before launching his attack.

Mr Tootal only realised he had been injured when blood started pouring heavily from the wound.

He suffered a 3cm cut which needed stitches.

Jenner was in such a rage that as he left the house he also smashed a bathroom window.

On Thursday, Jenner's defence team disputed that the weapon used to cause Mr Tootal's injuries had been a claw hammer and instead described the weapon as "similar to a hammer you would find on a bus".

Defending, Paul Andrews added: "Violence is clearly out of his nature and this incident was a result of an impulse of jealousy.

"He knows that he should have walked away."

On sentencing Jenner, Mr Recorder Nelson QC told him: "You went to her home uninvited and there she was with a man she had met in a nightclub.

"You hit him across the side of the head with a weapon and gloated about it afterwards.

"This case is so serious a custodial sentence is justified."

Jenner, who had previously admitted all charges, was jailed for two years for actual bodily harm and sentenced to a further three months, to run concurrently, for criminal damage.