A WOMAN suffered a ferocious beating and was left with a fractured nose and cheekbone after her ex-partner and his new girlfriend burst into her flat, a court heard.

The woman and a friend were getting ready to go to work in a nightclub when Stacey Richardson knocked on the front door and pushed her way inside, throwing punches.

Although some of the blows connected with the 26-year-old, she and her friend managed to wrestle Richardson to the front door, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Paul Abrahams said the women then saw 34-year-old Kristofer Millward, outside damaging an Audi A4 car owned by his his former partner of seven years.

Moments later, he too burst into her Hartlepool flat and launched a flurry of punches and a kick that left her with appalling injuries which needed specialist hospital treatment.

Mr Abrahams said that after the woman left Millward to move in by herself he had continued to try to contact her and she had applied for a non-molestation order to keep him away.

At 7.50pm on June 28 this year, there was a hard knock at her front door, 30-year-old Richardson barged in and asked her: “What is this about you wanting my baby to die?”.

Mr Abrahams said: “The complainant said: 'I don't have a clue what you mean,' but Richardson started throwing punches and one or two of them connected with the chin."

The two women ended up sprawled in a "bear hug" on the sofa until the victim's friend pulled off her attacker and they dragged her to the front door where they saw Millward damaging the car.

He burst into the flat and punched his ex partner to the face, hitting her eyes and nose while Richardson held her arms from the back as Millward continued to punch her in the face.

Their victim ran to the living room window and tried to climb out, but when she was half-way through, Millward punched her in the face again while Richardson was pulling her legs.

Rod Hunt, mitigating, said Richardson's relationship with Millward, a Hartlepool man of no fixed abode, had led to angry exchanges on Facebook between the two women.

He said: "This was not a pre-meditated offence, it arose from domestic turbulence."

Millward admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent and criminal damage to the car, and was jailed for a total of three years.

Mother-of-two Richardson, of Earl Street, Hartlepool, admitted assault causing actual bodily harm, and her case was adjourned until next month for background reports.