A CRACK cocaine addict who tortured his mistress because he suspected that she had another lover, was jailed for four-and-a-half years yesterday.

Vincent Agar, 55, branded Adrienne Loader, 41, with a heated bottle, cut her wrist with a razor blade, stubbed a cigarette on her arm, and cut off her hair with scissors.

When he finally left, locking her in his flat, she phoned the police who smashed their way inside to rescue her, said Shaun Dodds, prosecuting at Teesside Crown Court.

A doctor who examined Mrs Loader, who had a 12-year on-off affair with Agar, found more than 30 injuries on her body.

Mr Dodds said: "She said that she was off work for two weeks having nightmares."

Agar's wife of 34 years, Mary, told the court the attack happened after she threw him out when she discovered he was taking drugs.

Mrs Loader, who made a 30-page statement to police about her torture ordeal, said that Agar had been smoking crack cocaine over a 24-hour period in his Middlesbrough flat.

Judge Peter Bowers told Agar: "It is clear you subjected her to sustained and systematic cruelty over a long period of hours. While you may have been affected by crack cocaine when it began, it was nothing short of barbaric in the way you terrorised her.

"Who knows what emotional and psychological scars you left her with?

"This sort of violence is so barbaric it must merit a very substantial prison sentence."

Agar, of Parliament Road, Middlesbrough, admitted unlawful wounding and two assaults between December 29 and January 1, and was jailed for a further 12 months, to run consecutively, after he admitted possession of crack cocaine on April 2 last year.