A MAN who subjected his girlfriend to a terrifying ordeal in the sheltered housing where she lived has been jailed.

Richard Nathan Bradshaw, 22, had already served a jail term for breaking a court order aimed at protecting the young woman, York Crown Court heard.

“I really thought he was going to kill me,” she told the court of his actions on December 7.

“It was the most terrifying two hours I have ever lived through. I cannot get it out of my head.”

Jailing Bradshaw, the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris said: “People who beat women, vulnerable women, especially when they are protected by court orders, must understand they go away (to prison).”

Thomas Parsons-Munn, prosecuting, said Bradshaw had been staying in the woman’s York home for three weeks before the assault, though he lived elsewhere.

On December 6, she asked him to leave because of his behaviour towards her.

As he packed his belongings, he threw a portable heater that hit her leg.

Then he began an onslaught that included knocking her out on two occasions, forcing the side of her face against a wall causing her “intense pain,” and imprisoning her in the bathroom until “she was quiet”.

When he let her out, she was sick and cried into the toilet. He imprisoned her again in the bathroom.

At one point she tried to escape from the flat, but Bradshaw had the front door key in his pocket.

Her injuries included a scar to her eyebrow that needed three stitches to heal.

Jailing Bradshaw for 12 months, the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, said the sentence would have been longer had the CPS charged Bradshaw with wounding, which the judge said fitted the evidence.

Bradshaw, of Varo Terrace, Stockton-on-Tees, was charged with and pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of actual bodily harm.

He had previously served a prison sentence for breaching a domestic violence prevention order protecting the woman.

For him, Andrew Petterson said he didn’t want to resume the relationship. He was now in a relationship with another woman and intended to move to Manchester on his release.