AN ex-serviceman “exploded” when his partner told him he would not be seeing his young children at Christmas and she was ending their relationship.

Carl Arran Bell flew into a vodka-fuelled rage, launching a verbal and physical attack, Durham Crown Court was told.

Neil Jones, prosecuting, said she retreated to an upstairs bathroom, huddled behind the door, but Bell barged in with such force, that he knocked the door off its hinges and dislodged a radiator.

Following a lull she went to bed, but Bell grabbed her and stood on her bare foot, causing a nail to break.

Mr Jones said her ordeal resumed the following morning, when he prevented her from leaving her home, in Stanley, by locking the front door and hiding the key before squashing her against a safety gate when she made a further freedom bid.

It was only after she sent a social media request to a friend urging her to ring the police that it came to an end.

Bell, 28, of Providence Row, Durham, admitted affray arising from the episode, last December.

Tony Davis, mitigating, said: “The reality is that he accepts that during the course of it, he used or threatened unlawful violence.

“But, there were no significant injuries, and there has been no repetition.”

Mr Davis said Bell, who had, “an exemplary” RAF career, could be suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and is engaging with a forces’ charity to address his, “latent difficulties”.

He said Bell has taken an hgv course and hopes to join the reserve forces, depending on the sentence imposed.

Recorder Nicholas Lumley said it was, “an utterly unforgiveable violent outburst”.

But he added: “Mercifully, you have engaged with Working with Wounded and have the support of your parents.

“I’m conscious time has elapsed since the offence with no further offending.”

He passed a 12-month community order to include 30 rehabilitation days overseen by the Probation Service.

A restraining order was made prohibiting Bell from contacting his ex-partner, “until further order”.