A MAN who broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house and assaulted her by biting her nose has been given a 17-month prison sentence.

Nathaniel Benson, 39, smashed a window to gain entry to the woman’s home in Queensbury on June 3 last year.

Prosecutor Adam Walker told Bradford Crown Court that after hearing banging on her front and back doors, the woman had called 999 on her phone, which she then put in a drawer, and hid under the covers on her bed.

He said that Benson came upstairs shouting, before then kneeling over her and biting her nose.

He then grabbed the woman around the neck and pushed her down onto the bed until the attack was disturbed when a neighbour, who had heard the noise, knocked at the house.

In a statement, the woman said: “I thought I was going to pass out. I honestly believe that Nathaniel Benson would have killed me if someone had not knocked at the door.”

Mr Walker told the court that around two months earlier, on April 9, Benson had assaulted the woman, who he had split up with in the January of last year, outside The Crown pub on Great Horton Road, grabbing her by the throat until friends intervened.

The court was told that Benson, of Hill Top Road, Thornton, Bradford, had a previous conviction for domestic violence, having been convicted of assaulting a long-term former partner by punching her to the head and back in 2014.

The defendant pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal damage, and was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault following a trial.

Glenn Parsons, defending, said Benson, who worked as a baker, had also faced a charge of kidnapping, but had been acquitted following a re-trial.

He said that a new witness had come forward for those proceedings, telling the jury that Benson’s ex-partner had “exaggerated the incident terribly” in order to get back at him.

He added that both parties had exchanged “vitriolic” messages in the run-up to the assault in the woman’s home, describing the injuries caused as “superficial.”

Mr Parsons said that since Benson had been in custody since June last year, he had already served the equivalent of a two-year sentence.

He urged Judge Colin Burn to pass a sentence that would allow the defendant to “leave through the front rather than back door” of the court.

Judge Burn said that Benson’s victim had been left feeling “vulnerable, frightened, and scared” by the incidents.

He said: “There is no doubt there was an assault that caused some injury to her.”

The judge imposed an indefinite restraining order, preventing any contact between Benson, who the court heard planned to move to the Harrogate or Leeds area, and his ex-partner.

Handing down a 17-month jail term, Judge Burn told Benson: “It seems it is appropriate to consider that you have served that sentence, so you will be released today.”