A MAN wielded a billhook at his ex-partner and told her: “I am going to smash you and your car up."

Judge Andrew Stubbs QC said the woman was “effectively cowering” in her car to try and escape Nicholas Radley-Holmes’ drunken violence.

York Crown Court heard the 29-year-old had already smashed the rear and front windows of another car, causing £500 damage, and driven from York to Kirkbymoorside while twice the drink drive limit.

Rob Galley, prosecuting, said armed police were called out to deal with Radley-Holmes who had previous convictions for assaulting his ex-partner, vandalism and public disorder.

Radley-Holmes, of Skelton near York, was jailed for 12 months and banned from driving for 21 months.

He was also made subject to a five-year restraining order banning him from going within 50 metres of the ex-partner’s home.

Radley-Holmes pleaded guilty to having a bladed instrument in public, drink driving and criminal damage.

He denied assaulting the woman, but magistrates convicted him at a trial which he failed to attend.

Representing himself, he said: “I was extremely drunk. I don’t know how I managed to drive all the way from York to Malton to Kirkbymoorside.”

Mr Galley said the woman was at her sister’s house when Radley-Holmes arrived with two bottles of lager and behaved aggressively.

He then went back to his car and fetched the billhook which he used to smash the windows of the first car.

He went up to his ex-partner and told her: “I am going to smash you and your car up.”

She took refuge in her car and he hit its windscreen with a bottle.

The woman was "terrified of what he could do in the end”, said Mr Galley.

Radley-Holmes said the woman had visited him since he had been remanded in prison and he had been working on reducing his binge drinking and anger management problems.

He had the billhook as protection as he was living in his car at the time.