The husband of terminally-ill Jade Goody was due to appear in court today accused of assaulting a taxi driver on the same day his wife was hoping an emergency operation will help relieve her “awful pain”.

Jack Tweed (21) of Buckhurst Hill, Essex, was due to face the charge at Epping Magistrates Court, in Essex, said a court spokeswoman.

He is alleged to have assaulted the taxi driver in Epping in May 2008, police said.

Tweed, who married cancer-battling Ms Goody eight days ago, was given an 18-month jail sentence in September after being convicted of assaulting a teenage boy.

The 27-year-old Big Brother star last night returned to the Royal Marsden Hospital, in Fulham, south west London, from the Essex hospice where she was being treated.

She had spent the day in agony and doctors will be operating as soon as possible said her publicist Max Clifford.

Ms Goody has been given weeks to live after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“She has a great deal of pain from her tummy and they don’t seem to be able to get it under control,” said Mr Clifford.

Goody was taken to St Clare Hospice, in Hastingwood, near Harlow, Essex, on Friday night and had been due to return to her home, in nearby Upshire, today.

But Mr Clifford said doctors had explained that surgery was likely to be the best option.

She left the hospice in an ambulance with a police escort at about 5pm.

“I think it’s just to get her out of this awful pain that she is in,” said Mr Clifford.

“When I spoke to her she said she might need further surgery. She says they’ve explained things to her and that’s what’s likely to happen. She said: ‘Whatever gets me out of this pain’.”

Mr Clifford denied Goody’s admission to hospital was a setback in her battle against the disease.

“It’s a continuing process but we hope they will be able to get things under control,” he said.

“She wants to go home. She doesn’t want to be in hospital.”

He added: “She’s very frightened. She was sobbing on the phone to me. She said: ‘Why can’t they get me out of all this pain?’.

“Hopefully that’s what they’re going to do.”

Mr Clifford said Goody was surrounded by friends at the hospice.

He said he believed her husband, Jack Tweed, 21, who she wed last Sunday, was watching yesterday’s Carling Cup final between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur with one of Goody’s two sons.

Goody is due to be christened next Saturday at a church close to her home with her boys, Bobby (5) and Freddie (4).

She also plans to record a television interview with Piers Morgan for ITV early next week, Mr Clifford said.

Doctors have told Goody that she has weeks to live after her cervical cancer spread to her liver, groin and bowel.