A SOLDIER facing the daily horrors of war in Afghanistan received a letter from his wife telling him their 11-year marriage was over.

Richard Lamont, 28, was told that while he was away fighting for his country, his wife Lynn had started an affair.

Deborah Charles, defending, told Canterbury Crown Court: "The letter said: 'I have met someone else. I don't want you.'"

Lamont, of Dover Street, Canterbury regularly witnessed people being blown up and came within seconds of being killed after stopping one vehicle.

He was given five days’ compassionate leave from his territorial regiment to save his relation to the mother of his three children. But the court heard that it failed and, when he returned to Afghanistan, he contemplated killing himself.

In March this year, on his wedding anniversary, Lamont drank six or seven pints of larger before going to Mrs Lamont's home in Herne Bay, armed with an imitation weapon.

Alistair Keith, prosecuting, said Mrs Lamont was with her boyfriend Christopher Belsey when the soldier began banging on the door.

She went outside where Lamont slapped her around the head causing red marks. Mr Keith said: "At this point the incident moved inside the house, where the defendant produced this pistol and put it to Lynn Lamont's face. She was clearly terrified.”

Mr Belsey was also present and the gun was pointed at him too, he added.

Lamont, who admitted charges of possessing an imitation firearm and assaulting Mrs Lamont, then left the house and threw the weapon away in a nearby bush. Police officers later arrested him and the gun was retrieved, the court heard.

Miss Charles said Lamont had married when he was 17 and was a "man of impeccable character”.

As a member of the Territorial Army he volunteered to serve in Afghanistan, despite his wife's opposition. Miss Charles he found it difficult to carry out his duties and returned to England.

In November last year, he moved back to the family home but his wife carried on the affair.

"Moreover, she also confessed to having a fling with a teenager and told him to leave home again," said Miss Charles.

The week before the gun incident, Lamont claimed his wife struck him about the face during an argument. On that occasion, he just walked away but the following week on what would have been the anniversary of their wedding, he had gone to the woods to clear his head but felt this urge to talk to Mrs Lamont.

"He has no recollection of what took place but clearly a red mist descended. It was an act of desperation."

She said that since the incident, Lamont had qualified as an electrical engineer and had taken anger management classes.

Judge Adele Williams ordered him to undergo a two-year community rehabilitation order on the condition he receive psychiatric help.

She told him: "People who use any sort of firearm to frighten people normally always go to prison. I am not going to send you to prison for wholly exceptional reasons. But if you fail to take advantage of them and breach the order, I will have no hesitation in sending you there.

"In my view you are a man of good character who has shown, what I consider, to be genuine remorse. But what you did was wrong, very wrong.”

Lamont, who hopes to serve in Iraq, was also ordered to pay £200 costs.