A JUDGE told a man who pushed over his pregnant girlfriend that the charge brought against him was “ludicrous”.

Andrew Walker knocked Zoe Williams down in Hereford city centre during a row over who the baby’s father was, Worcester Crown Court heard.

But a decision was made by the Crown Prosecution Service to charge him with threatening behaviour rather than assault, said Peter Parson, prosecuting.

Judge Alistair McCreath said he had to sentence Walker on “the fictional basis that he didn’t lay a finger on her”.

But he said a witness saw the attack on February 10 which was “a plain assault”.

The judge told 30-year-old Walker, of Sandown Drive, Bobblestock, Hereford: “This was a ludicrous charging decision.

If the charge had been assault, I would have sent you to prison. What you did was to assault a pregnant woman when you were full of drink and in a temper.”

But he was bound by the law to sentence for the lesser charge and fined Walker £250.

The judge said it would have been disproportionate to activate a suspended 12-month jail sentence imposed in January for grievous bodily harm.

Instead, he revised the period of suspension from 18 months to two years.

Walker was ordered to attend a probation- run programme on domestic abuse.

The judge added: “You got away with it this time because of an inept charging decision, but there will not be a second time.”

The judge said he was referring the case for an explanation.

Walker and 23-year-old Miss Williams, who was four months pregnant, had been to various pubs before bumping into a man she got into a row with, said Mr Parson.

The couple walked off but Walker became aggressive and made unpleasant comments “about the origins of the baby”.

He pushed her near a city shop and she fell on to the pavement on her back.

Andrew Davidson, defending, said the couple were back together and Walker was giving her financial support. He was in a full-time job and they had long-term plans to buy a house and settle down.