A DRUG addict who stabbed his girlfriend in the leg while crazed on cocaine has walked free after a judge heard that the couple were back together.

Victim Louise Freeman refused to support a prosecution against Daniel Bastion, from Sidcup, because she believed he was a different person when not taking drugs.

Asked how she felt about the prospect of the 22-year-old father being sent to jail, Miss Freeman wept: “I don’t want him to go. I didn’t want this to happen.”

Suspending a 12-month sentence for two years and ordering drug rehabilitation, a judge warned Bastion: “If at any stage you decided to stick something up your nose, I will send you to prison unhesitatingly and immediately.”

Maidstone Crown Court heard how Miss Freeman had been going out with Bastion for about two years when she went to bed at their home in Kenwyn Close, Dartford, on May 28 last year.

After midnight, Bastion kept going into the room and turning the lights on. He pulled the covers back and asked Miss Freeman, 21, if she had someone sleeping there.

Martin Yale, prosecuting, said Miss Freeman told Bastion to leave her alone. But he returned and accused her of lying.

She then felt a wet sensation on her leg and realised it was blood. She accused him of stabbing her and he apologised. The duvet had six cuts in it from the knife.

She called for an ambulance and was taken to Darent Valley Hospital, where four stitches were inserted in the wound to her right leg.

Bastion told police he could not remember much about what had happened and could not remember stabbing her but recalled seeing a lot of blood. He admitted taking about 2g of cocaine.

Bastion, now of Ashcroft Close, Blackfen, Sidcup, admitted assault causing actual bodily harm.

Miss Freeman, an insurance broker of Wilmington, told Judge Philip Statman: “He changed from the person I knew when he took drugs. When he didn’t take drugs he was nice and kind.

“I know he didn’t do it to hurt me. Drugs make him paranoid. We recently got back together again. He needs to be clean before anything can happen.”