A violent bully who attacked his girlfriend after flying into a rage has been locked up.

Reece Harrison assaulted his ex-partner over a two-day period after luring her back after she fled to her mother’s following the first assault.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the violence started on November 28 last year when the defendant pushed her into the door frame of the house they shared in Stockton before slamming the door onto her arm.

Paul Abrahams, prosecuting, said the mother-of-one managed to escape from his ‘horrific abuse’ before receiving a barrage of abusing messages from the 22-year-old.

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The court heard how Harrison branded the mother of his child a ‘divvy little ****’ and threatened to ‘smash her face in’.

He said the defendant managed to coax his victim out of her mother’s home but soon turned violent when she returned home on November 29 and he started abusing her for ‘running away’ to her mother’s home.

“He slapped her across the head three times,” he said. “He grabbed her by the neck and pushed her onto the bed.

“When he let her up, he grabbed her phone and he refused to give it back to her to stop her calling the police.

“She got her phone back after she promised not to call the police but she managed to text her mother and ask her to call them as she was too scared to do it herself in case he heard – he had threatened to kill her.”

In a victim impact statement, the young mother said she had been left traumatised by the abusive seven-year relationship she had been in with the defendant.

She added: “I wish for him to be out of my life and our child’s life due to his abusive behaviour.”

Harrison, of, Rotherham Avenue, Stockton, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assault by beating.

Jonathan Walker, mitigating, said: “He accepts in reality that the abuse meted out to this young lady can only result in custody.”

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Judge Timothy Stead jailed the defendant for a total of 19-months for both offences.

He said: “These offences took place in domestic circumstances, that doesn’t make it less serious, it makes it more serious.”

Harrison was also made subject of a five-year restraining order to protect his victim.