A THUG convicted of three assaults in the space of two years looks set to spend years behind bars for a kidnapping in Trowbridge.

Drug dealer Colin Cooke, 32, entered a last-minute guilty plea to causing actual bodily harm and kidnap at Swindon Crown Court on Monday.

Cooke, of Frome Road, Trowbridge, admitted kidnapping and attacking 31-year-old Craig Dyer from a flat on the Seymour estate in March and is due to be sentenced today.

Cooke is already serving eight years for an assault in a Trowbridge pub, in which the victim needed life-saving surgery, and is now facing a total jail term of more than 10 years.

Det Con Paul Clifford of Trowbridge CID said: "This is the third time he has been up before a judge in less than two years.

"He is already serving eight years and we are waiting to see what he gets in addition to that but I would expect he will serve some time."

Mr Dyer needed stitches to wounds to his head, face, wrists and hands after the attack during which he was tied up with flex and bundled into the boot of a car after being assaulted in a Francis Street flat.

He managed to escape from the boot of the car and run to safety.

Cooke was given an eight-year sentence for GBH with intent in June after him and two other men launched a vicious attack on 28-year-old Dean Peverley in a Trowbridge pub.

Mr Peverley was left needing surgery to remove his spleen and most of his pancreas after the assault in the Kings Arms pub in April 2003.

The men stormed into the pub looking for revenge after an earlier brawl at the Sir Isaac Pitman pub, shouting the words 'remember us'.

Sentencing the men Judge Tom Longbotham said: "The attitude demonstrated by all three of you seems to this court not only violent but arrogantly violent."

At the time of the incident in the Kings Arms, Cooke was on bail for a knife assault in June 2002, for which he was later jailed for 18 months.

In that attack he armed himself with a knife and waited outside the home of Kevin York, butting him to the ground. Mr York suffered facial injuries and bruising as well as sustaining a deep cut to his hand as he tried to fight off his attacker.

Cooke has 19 previous convictions for 40 offences and has been jailed for supplying drugs.

DC Clifford said: "He is not the sort of person you want to invite to your Christmas party."