A CAGE FIGHTER from Poole, who was yesterday found guilty of killing a dad, has a number of previous convictions for violence.

It took the jury at Winchester Crown Court eight hours to find Damon Wright guilty of the manslaughter of Saints groundsman Kevin Wyeth in Woolston last year.

He was cleared of the charge of murder by the jury.

The 32-year-old stood in the dock with his head down as the jury of four women and eight men returned their verdict.

Judge Guy Boney adjourned sentencing until April 25.

It is not the first time that Wright has faced the courts for violence.

Over the past decade the cage fighter has notched up a catalogue of convictions for beatings and assault on men, women, children and even an unborn baby.

Wright, who was medically discharged from the Army when he was 18, himself admitted in court that he had a short fuse and that he had lost his temper when he didn’t get his own way.

This also wasn’t the first time that he has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Just two years before his brutal attack on Mr Wyeth Wright was being quizzed by police over the sudden and unexpected death of his new girlfriend, Diane Goode, at his flat in Poole.

He was arrested when police were initially alarmed by bruises on the 46-year-old’s body which she had told friends that she had got through “play fighting” with Wright.

A post-mortem failed to find any definitive cause of death and her death was put down to natural causes.

Wright was released without charge.

The jury at Winchester Crown Court were told that his first conviction for actual bodily harm came after he punched his then partner in the lip, during an argument in a cemetery in September 1999.

Then in June 2002 he turned against his sister, hitting her in the chest before chasing her through the streets.

In January 2004 he faced two convictions for common assault on his now ex-wife and her six-year-old son just days before Christmas 2003.

His ex-wife fell victim once again just a few months later in March 2004, when Wright strangled her until she became unconscious and then assaulted two police officers that came to her rescue.

She was then confronted by Wright once more in October 2005, when he punched the man she was walking with, knocking him to the ground and kicking him in the chest.

A few years later, in 2009, Wright was caught on camera attacking his girlfriend in Poole and trying to bundle her into a car.

Just a few days after his sentence for this, he lost his temper again, assaulting the friend of his girlfriend, punching her in the face and knocking her unconscious for about two minutes.

His most recent convictions came in 2012.

In March that year he was found guilty of trying to suffocate yet another partner, who was 15 weeks pregnant, before punching her in the stomach.

And then in May 2012 for punching the friend of his pregnant victim more than six times after knocking her to the floor.

'I'll never be able to forgive him for killing my son'

THE mother of manslaughter victim Kevin Wyeth said she would never be able to forgive Wright for the killing.

Linda Timberlake from Poole said: “I will never be able to forgive him, especially given all of the other horrendous crimes he committed before this.

“Kevin was in the prime of his life and had so much to look forward to. The most horrific part of all this for me wasn’t the actual hitting but the fact that CCTV footage shows him demonstrating what he had just done to my son to his friend. That makes me feel sick.”

For Mr Wyeth’s family the loss was made even worse by the fact they had to wait so long to say a proper goodbye.

Due to the extent of his horrific injuries to his face, he had to be identified by his fingerprints, so his family, desperate to see him one last time, were unable to go and identify him the normal way.

They then had to wait an agonising five months before they could bury him.

Linda said: “It has all been so traumatic because it was hanging over us all for so long. It has had a huge impact on all of our lives and relationships. His brothers and sister are really struggling to come to terms with it all. I had feared that by the time we got to bury him people may have forgotten, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. When we turned up to the church they were queuing into the road.”