A muscular brute who carried out assaults on four children on separate occasions has been jailed for 15 months.

Curtis Davies, 22, shouted at a young girl and shook and kicked her cot at a house in Gillingham, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Anthony Prosser said Davies was play fighting with a boy but became aggressive and punched him back harder.

He sat on another boy’s head, put a pillow over it and kicked him while he was on the floor. He also punched his knees.

Davies got a third child to wrap material around his hands while he wore boxing gloves for a sparring session.

He told him to indicate if it got too much but carried on hitting when he did so.

"With hindsight, he realised how inappropriate his behaviour was..." - James Ross, defending

In another incident he grabbed the boy by the back of the head and “bashed” it on a wall.

The boy grabbed a baseball bat from a friend’s home to exact revenge, said Mr Prosser.

But the pal stopped him from retaliating by telling him he should go to the police.

The boy still retained the bat in case he was attacked again.

Davies threatened a third boy with a screwdriver and a hammer.

He also left a scorch mark on a PVC door after holding a lighter to it.

Mr Prosser said Davies denied being violent when arrested at a house in Sturdee Avenue, Gillingham, in November last year.

But he admitted four offences of child cruelty and one of arson.

James Ross, defending, said Davies had been “something of a lost soul” and found pressures quite intense.

“With hindsight, he realised how inappropriate his behaviour was,” he added.

Judge Philip St John-Stevens said there was verbal and physical abuse and psychological harm to the victims.

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“There must be a term of imprisonment to mark the seriousness of this offending,” he told Davies.

He was jailed for 15 months for the offences and three months consecutive for breaching a suspended sentence order for theft and making a false representation.