diff --git a/src/org/daisy/dotify/common/text/BreakPointHandler.java b/src/org/daisy/dotify/common/text/BreakPointHandler.java
index 5f85f30..7e55ad0 100644
--- a/src/org/daisy/dotify/common/text/BreakPointHandler.java
+++ b/src/org/daisy/dotify/common/text/BreakPointHandler.java
@@ -239,7 +239,7 @@ private BreakPoint newBreakpointFromPosition(int strPos, int breakPoint, boolean
 		}  else if (state.charsStr.charAt(i)==ZERO_WIDTH_SPACE) { // ignore zero width space 
 			head = state.charsStr.substring(0, i);
 			tailStart = i+1;
-		} else if (state.charsStr.charAt(i)==DASH && state.charsStr.length()>1 && state.charsStr.charAt(i-1)==SPACE) {
+		} else if (state.charsStr.charAt(i)==DASH && state.charsStr.length()>1 && i!=0 && state.charsStr.charAt(i-1)==SPACE) {
 			// if hyphen is preceded by space, back up one more
 			head = state.charsStr.substring(0, i);
 			tailStart = i;
diff --git a/test/org/daisy/dotify/common/text/BreakPointHandlerTest.java b/test/org/daisy/dotify/common/text/BreakPointHandlerTest.java
index 37543b3..ebd7e87 100644
--- a/test/org/daisy/dotify/common/text/BreakPointHandlerTest.java
+++ b/test/org/daisy/dotify/common/text/BreakPointHandlerTest.java
@@ -330,4 +330,11 @@ public void testMarkReset() {
 		assertEquals("", bp.getTail());
 	}
 
+	@Test
+	public void testNextRowDoesNotCrashWhenBreakpointIsTheFirstCharacterAndRowStartsWithHyphen(){
+		BreakPointHandler bph = new BreakPointHandler( "-abcdef");
+		BreakPoint bp = bph.nextRow(3, false);
+		assertEquals("-", bp.getHead());
+		assertEquals("abcdef", bp.getTail());
+	}
 }
\ No newline at end of file