A MUM has told how she feared she was going to be killed during a relentless attack by her estranged husband.

Jonathan O'Hara used a belt, a knife, a dog bowl and a mop bucket during the demeaning assault at the marital home.

Teesside Crown Court heard how he threatened to kill, cut and torture his former partner and burn her house down in the terrifying ordeal.

The 26-year-old first started hitting kitchen cupboards as he and his former partner argued about their relationship.

Then he turned on her, grabbing her hair, claiming he loved her and blaming her for making him angry.

He stopped her going to tend her crying child upstairs, grabbing her again, pushing her, repeatedly banging her head against the wall.

He choked her with a belt and forced her over a kitchen worktop and pushed his thumb into her throat.

She struggled to breathe and saw black dots in front of her eyes before he straddled her on the floor saying: "If I can't have you then no-one else can."

She said he went to hit her with the dog food bowl then emptied the contents of a mop bucket over her head saying: "Drown. I hope you drown."

He threatened to record her humiliation on her phone at the Stockton home on September 30.

Prosecutor Jolyon Perks said: "She was so distressed and so under his control that she told him to finish it. She genuinely thought at that point that she might be killed."

O'Hara told his estranged wife he wanted her dead and threatened to burn the house down.

He grabbed a knife or meat cleaver and told her he would torture and cut her.

A neighbour who heard O'Hara repeatedly shouting he would kill his ex, threatening to "smash your face in", and her screaming and sobbing, dialled 999.

The woman later said she felt scared, shaken and worried he could return and hurt her, but while he was in custody she felt much calmer.

O'Hara admitted assault causing actual bodily harm and making a threat to kill.

Tom Mitchell, mitigating, said: "This was effectively an unfortunate, dreadful, one-off, isolated incident that's never going to happen again. Mercifully the victim didn't have that much by way of physical injury."

Judge Stephen Ashurst jailed O'Hara for 15 months after telling him: "No-one listening to the description of the events that night would be in any doubt as to the degree of fear you caused.

"What you did was to lose your temper in a very dramatic way. She was, I'm afraid, in fear of her life.

"In the cold light of day I think you understand how demeaning your behaviour was and how terrified she must have been. You completely lost control."