A VIOLENT thug is back behind bars after battering a taxi driver over the head with a hammer just weeks after being released from custody.

Victim Mark Burgess was left with a four-and-a-half inch gash on the left side of his head after he was attacked in Tamar Grove, Leigh, where he had been called to pick up customer.

When he arrived on Sunday, April 28, last year, Gareth Wilson, aged 26, appeared carrying a young girl.

He walked over to the driver’s open window and asked him to turn his engine off.

Wilson then attacked the driver with a rubber mallet, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

Wilson, of Glebe Street, Leigh, pleaded guilty to wounding with intent and was jailed for six years and ten months.