AN angry prisoner who hurled his lasagne at the wall of a police cell in Kidderminster because he reckoned it was too sloppy has been told to "grow up" by a court judge.

Dominic Greenhalgh was being held at Kidderminster Police Station for drug driving and claimed he burned his fingers when his lasagne supper tipped off the plate.

He flung it at the wall, leaving a stain that need professional cleaning, and told a custody officer, "what do you expect when you give me soup?".

A judge at Exeter Crown Court told him to grow up but chose not to activate an earlier suspended sentence.

Greenhalgh, aged 31, of Bennett Square, Exeter, admitted criminal damage and drug driving and was fined £240 with £120 costs, banned from driving for three years and ordered to do 10 days of rehabilitation activities.

Judge David Evans told him: “I appreciate you may have had a bad day, but giving way to frustration in the way that you did was deeply childish. You are 31 and need to grow up.”

Mr Ryan Murray, prosecuting, said Greenhalgh was arrested after going to his ex-partner’s home in Kingswood Close, Redditch, and shouting through the letterbox in a dispute over child access.

His car was stopped nearby and he failed a roadside drug tests and later gave a reading for cannabis of 3.5 microgrammes per litre, well over the safe limit of two.

He threw the meal at the wall of his cell after being arrested at 11.35pm and later told police he was "stressed out, angry and upset".

Mr Warren Robinson, defending, said the new offences were not serious enough to trigger the previous suspended sentence and would normally attract only a fine or a community order.

The suspended sentence was imposed at Exeter Crown Court in July last year for an incident in which Greenhalgh and his new partner Anne Holland attacked a man at the Three Tuns pub in Honiton.

Holland, aged 27, started the assault and he joined in. The victim was headbutted, kicked and left with two chipped teeth.

He had a job interview the next day and did not get the post because he turned up with his face battered and bruised.