A teenage yob who attacked a woman teacher "half his height" with a chair and broke her wrist has been jailed for six years.

Levi Taylor boasted of how he beat Wendy McNally and spat in her face after she asked him to stop play-fighting while in a Young Offenders' Institute, aged 16.

He brought a chair crashing down on to Ms McNally three times when she turned her back to call detention officers waiting outside the room on March 2 last year.

CCTV footage showed Taylor, now 18, then throwing the chair at a detention officer before he was subdued while on remand at the centre in Cookham Wood, Rochester.

Taylor was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court after he admitted a charge of wounding with intent on the first day of his trial.

He will have to serve a minimum of four years before he will be considered for parole. He will then be on licence for a further two years.

Sentencing Taylor to six years for wounding, and four months to run concurrently for common assault on the officer, Judge Adele Williams told him: "You committed a most unpleasant assault on Wendy McNally.

"You were being disruptive in class whereupon you then, having been reprimanded by her used a chair, raising it above her head and striking her three times.

"She fell to the floor, she was able to press an alarm. You spat in her face, she sustained a fractured wrist.

"Wendy McNally was doing no more than trying to help you, she was doing her job.

"If you had been an adult then a sentence of 12 years would have been appropriate..." - Judge Adele Williams

"Her victim personal statement makes it plain the extent of the deeply traumatic effect and the impact of this assault on her.

"I've no doubt that it will live with her for a very long time, she has not been able to continue teaching in the job she enjoyed.

"I make it plain that those who work in the public sector as Ms McNally was, deserve not to be treated in this way.

"There's no doubt about it, that you have had a very difficult start in life and you have had mental health difficulties from an early age.

"If you had been an adult then a sentence of 12 years would have been appropriate."

Taylor, wearing a grey Adidas jumper and a cross on a chain, exhaled as he was sent down and said "see you later" to relatives in the public gallery.

Earlier prosecutor Daniel Stevenson said: "He was on remand for offences of robbery, wounding and assault for which h was subsequently sentenced and remains a serving prisoner.

"She was teaching a class of seven residents which included him. She was the only member of staff in the teaching room."

He said after the first hour of her afternoon class: "By 3.10pm this resident became restless.

"He began play fighting and was becoming disruptive."

Mr Stevenson said Taylor was the "ringleader" in the disruption, adding: "She then told him that she would ask detention officers to remove him from the classroom.

"Whilst she was doing so the defendant picked up a chair, he pulled it up so that it was above Ms McNally's head - she is around half his height.

"He then used it strike Ms McNally three times and during the assault she placed her hands over her head.

"The defendant then used the same chair to assault one of the officers by throwing it at his arm and leg.

"As he was being escorted out of the classroom he spat directly into Ms McNally's face."

Taylor's "main response" to staff members at the institute was to say he assaulted her because "she had annoyed him".

Mr Stevenson said in two telephone calls Taylor said: "She is new. Just because you're a female don't think I'm going to be nice to you.

"I phlegmed in her face."

Just because you're a female don't think I'm going to be nice to you..." - Levi Taylor

Taylor had 13 convictions for 44 offences including assaulting his mother and sister, criminal damage, robbery and aggravated vehicle taking between 2015 and 2016.

He is currently serving a five year and two month detention for two counts of robbery, wounding with intent, battery, assault occasioning actual bodily harm - offences which he was on remand for when he attacked Ms McNally.

Joanna Hardy, in mitigation, said he had been diagnosed with ADHD, Asperger's syndrome, dyspraxia and a sleep-weight disorder.

She said: "Mr Taylor offers this court and the victim no excuses and nothing but apologies.

"He's not had an easy start in life, it's a sorry record for a young man.

"He has put pen to paper. He writes, 'To judge, if I could explain and prove how disappointed I am I will do anything for Wendy McNally to forgive me.'"

She added: "He indicates that he has hopes to one day, when he is released from prison, to have employment, and to have a stable relationship with his partner who is there."