A MAN who broke into his former partner’s home and left her needing hospital treatment after punching her in the eye has been jailed.

Bradford Crown Court heard that Joseph Varey, 29, had been made subject to a restraining order in June last year after assaulting the woman and threatening to throw acid in her face.

Despite the order preventing any contact between the pair, prosecutor Laura McBride said Varey went to his ex’s home on Oakleigh Avenue, Clayton, Bradford, at around 12pm on September 13 last year while the mother-of-three was home alone.

She heard a noise upstairs and when she went to investigate, she saw Varey trying to break in through a bedroom window.

She tried to push him out, but he slapped her to the floor and managed to get inside the room.

Miss McBride said that Varey became “enraged” when the woman went to a different bedroom and rang 999, tipping over a bed before heading downstairs to rifle through cupboards.

He found a tin containing £20 and some scratchcards, also stealing £130 of the woman’s rent money.

When she confronted him, the pair pushed each other before Varey punched her to the face, causing a cut to her right eyebrow that began “bleeding heavily.”

The defendant left through a patio door before locking the woman in the house and running away.

She went to Bradford Royal Infirmary to have the wound treated, before returning home to her father-in-law and children at around 4pm.

An hour later, as she was watching television with two of her sons, they saw Varey staring through a window in the kitchen door, which the woman said left her “petrified.”

She went upstairs with the children as the defendant continued to shout insults towards her.

Miss McBride said that when her father-in-law returned, he saw a “very drunk” Varey staggering around outside the property trying to get inside.

He told him to stay until the police arrived, and Varey was arrested.

The court heard that the defendant, of Louis Avenue, Bradford, had three previous convictions for offences of domestic violence.

Ian Hudson, defending, said his client had been involved in a 14-month relationship with the woman.

He said that after the restraining order was made, the complainant had continued to send Varey “hundreds” of text messages, and had invited him round to her house a week prior to the offence.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, said alcohol had been the major factor in Varey’s offending.

He told him: “You clearly have a problem, and that problem is drink. It has been the bane of your life, as you are frank enough to understand.”

Judge Durham Hall jailed Varey for a total of 20 months, and re-issued the restraining order between him and his former partner, ordering no contact between the pair for an indefinite period.