A middle-aged man struck a woman in an unprovoked attack and then continued the assault as she lay on the ground in a crime which the sentencing judge described as despicable and cowardly.

A prisoner applied on humanitarian grounds to be allowed out to attend his mother’s funeral today against a background where he is accused of attacking a woman and threatening to petrol-bomb her home and kill her and her two children.

A Cork woman was punched in the face and attacked by a man who then threatened to petrol-bomb her home and kill her and her two children, it was alleged yesterday.