A UNIVERSITY student who smashed a woman's front door – showering her and her young children with glass – has been jailed for 10 months.

Bolton Crown Court heard how Priti Rama was at her Deane home with her mother-in-law and two children when Suleman Raja knocked at her door.

Colin Buckle, prosecuting, told how 32-year-old Mrs Rama opened the door to find a man, with a hood up and wearing a balaclava, outside.

He began to walk away but Mrs Rama, thinking he may have been a burglar, followed him to ask him what he wanted.

When he headed back towards her she hurried into the house and shut the door.

But 21-year-old Raja used a meat tenderiser to smash a pane in the door, smashing glass over the householder and her children, aged three and a half and one.

Police community support officers found Raja, still wearing the balaclava and hood, outside the Deane convenience store on Deane Road half an hour later.

This time they spotted him carrying a kitchen knife as well as the meat tenderiser, which he eventually agreed to put down.

Raja told police he had gone to the wrong address and had smashed the door 'out of temper.'

Kimberley Morton, defending, said Raja, who is studying neuro-sciences at university, had drunk a large amount of alcohol and taken cocaine for the first time, resulting in him becoming paranoid about people he suspected of damaging his home and his father's car.

He wrongly believed someone who had information about the incidents lived at Mrs Rama's home.

"The defendant is somewhat alarmed and perplexed as to why he behaved as he did," said Mrs Morton.

"He tells me he is disgusted at himself."

Raja, of Langthorne Walk, Deane, pleaded guilty to criminal damage and possessing a knife in public.

Judge Timothy Stead told Raja that, in his opinion, the crown prosecution service should have charged him with a more serious offence due to the fact that women and children, although not physically harmed, were in the house.

"I find it difficult to imagine a more serious example of criminal damage," he said,

"It appears you were, to a degree, out of control."