A NEWPORT city council community worker was yesterday cleared of allegations that he attacked and imprisoned his estranged wife in their former home for two-and-a-half hours.

The jury at Cardiff crown court found 31-year-old Richard Smith, of Waterloo Cottage, Llanbadoc, Usk, not guilty of falsely imprisoning mother-of-two Jodie Certowicz, an NHS Wales health information co-ordinator.

Mr Smith was also found not guilty of a charge of common assault. He had denied the charges.

His defence counsel, Tim Evans, had described Ms Certowicz as "a drama queen".

Mr Smith told the jury she had been violent to him in the past and that it was at her request that he went to her home in Myrtle Drive, Rogerstone. The visit was to discuss the future of their two children and mortgage arrears.

He said she became aggressive and abusive to him but later asked his advice about a new relationship she had formed.

Prosecutor Lee Ingham said that on August 21 last year both were in new relationships but told the court Mr Smith remained jealous of his wife and adopted the attitude: "If I can't have you no one else will."

Mr Ingham told the court that when she returned home at 12.30am she found Mr Smith in the house uninvited and later, when she went to bed, he grabbed her jaw, held her down, produced a knife and told her: "Don't make a move".

Ms Certowicz said he threatened to cut her ears off if she didn't show him text messages on her mobile phone and at one point "said something about stabbing me in the eyes".

She denied lying to get him into trouble.

Mr Smith told the jury it was untrue that he slapped her when she discovered him in the house with another woman on a separate occasion.

On the night of August 21 he said she wrongly accused him of stealing her mobile phone and had "stormed upstairs".

At no time, he said, did he assault her or threaten her with a knife. "She could flit between highs and lows," he said, and added: "Matters happened as I have described, not as she said."