A MAN who tried to strangle his wife in the shower was jailed for five years yesterday - and banned from contacting her again.

Factory worker Martin Lamont's catalogue of cruelty to his wife Kay, 40, included locking her in a cupboard and other demeaning acts, such as making her urinate into a jug, then pouring the contents over her head.

The 41-year-old father-of-two also smashed a wine glass over her head.

In another incident, he gagged her with masking tape and tied two tea-towels around her throat.

He then offered to drive her to hospital, but on the way told her: "You fell into my trap, you will never see the children again."

He pulled into a lay-by on the A1 near Scotch Corner, North Yorkshire, where she told him that she would try harder in the relationship, and he agreed to take her to hospital.

James Sunter, a Home Office pathologist who studied her injuries, found signs of ligature strangulation. Lamont was then charged with attempted murder.

But she wrote a moving letter to the judge asking for leniency for the sake of their two daughters, aged eight and 14.

The couple had been married for 17 years and friends thought that he was a doting husband, said Shaun Dodds, prosecuting.

Jamie Hill, defending, said that the wife and elder daughter had visited Lamont in prison.

Lamont claimed he acted out of desperation because he felt their relationship was failing.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox, told him: "You could easily have killed her. You must have got close to it.

"What I have heard boils down to repeated brutal, callous and cruel acts against your wife, domestic violence of the worst kind."

Lamont, of Linden Avenue, Darlington, was jailed for five years at Teesside Crown Court with another three years under supervision, and given an indefinite restriction order banning him from contacting his wife - with a five-year jail penalty.

He pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding, kidnapping and harassment between May last year and March.

He denied attempted murder and a not guilty verdict was entered by the judge.