A VICIOUS thug who sank his teeth into his partner's face before attacking her with a hammer has been jailed for 22 months.

Wasim Mumtaz, 31, who has a long record of violence including previous offences against his victim Patricia Hind, had been in an on/off relationship with her for a decade.

Burnley Crown Court heard that last August he repeatedly slapped Ms Hind, who is several years his senior, around the head and face, knocking her to the floor.

He bit her cheek and when she told him if he ever did anything like that again she would ring the police, he said: “No you won’t, you’ve got your kid to worry about," prosecutors said.

The court heard in September, he verbally abused the victim and she went and sat in her car.

The defendant followed her, put her in a headlock, hit her face several times, pulled her from the vehicle, struck her with a hammer wrapped in a pillowcase and dragged her into her porch. Prosecutor Andrew Petterson said: “The victim told the defendant the next time he struck her she would phone the police.

He replied: ‘Pat, you won't. I’ll cut your throat’.” Mr Petterson said while the defendant was in custody last November he made threats in phone calls. He threatened to ‘stab her up’, hurt her pet dogs and said she was being watched.

Mumtaz, of Ridge Row, Burnley, admitted two charges of assault causing actual bodily harm and four of witness intimidation.

His barrister, Stephen Couch said :"He says that he accepts that the death knell has sounded over this relationship and it is not to be resumed.”

Mumtaz was also made the subject of a five-year restraining order, banning him from contacting, approaching or following Ms Hind and from entering Rowland Avenue, Nelson.