Well ladies, I have had the worse two weeks of my life.

I moved house in August last year and in the last couple of months I have had loads of work done, front garden dug off and block paved, new kitchen, lot of building work downstairs. My next door neighbour (not the one I am attached to) has moaned throughout. He has knocked my door at various times moaning about the builders noise, moaning about dust in the air, moaning about when we were having the skip removed (from my own drive!) and his latest is that some random dog has pooed on his grass and it is my fault because I have had my drive block paved so I must pay to have his front garden fenced off! the last two times he came round he was horrible, screaming and shouting and my DH sent him off with a flea in his ear.
it all came to a head last weekened when we had the BBQ on, he came up to the fence moaning about that and was screaming and shouting again, to cut a long story short my husband had had a bit to drink and ended up going over the fence and punching him. They had a massive row, neighbour is asian, and DH called him a 'p'. Can't believe it.
So now DH has been charged with section 39 Racially Aggravated Assault. Which sounds ridiculous considering my neighbour wasn't even injured but the police said he had a cut lip and that is the lowest assault charge you can have. As it is his first conviction they expect a fine or even community service, but I am worried sick because I have read you can get 2 years in prison for this.
Is anybody on here a lawyer, or barrister, or event have first hand experience of this could give me an idea of what type of sentence he could be looking at? will we get a chance to put the mitigating circumstances to the magistraite?
Also my husband works for the NHS as an ultra sound assistant, obvio0usly he is going to have to tell work because they will find our with his next CRB check, does this mean he will automatically lose his job? do they have the right to sack him over this?
Any advice would be appreciated, I know my DH is in the wrong here, I wish it had never happened, but it has and I need to know what we are looking at and what impact it will have upon his career.
Sorry for the long 'woe is me' post, any words of advice, as always, would be appreciated x x