A cheating husband who brutally beat and raped his wife after making venomous threats to kill her has been jailed for nine years.

The man was led shouting and protesting to the cells at Bradford Crown Court after he was convicted by a jury yesterday afternoon of a catalogue of violence against the mother of his two young children.

He repeatedly called out angrily: “How can I rape my own wife?” as officers escorted him from the courtroom.

The Bradford man, in his early thirties, was found guilty of rape, common assault and four offences of making a threat to kill. He pleaded guilty before the trial started to causing his wife actual bodily harm. The jury cleared him of a second allegation of rape.

His barrister, David Bradshaw, said there was no point adjourning the case for a probation service report because the man did not think he had done anything wrong.

The man, who cannot be named to protect his wife’s identity, threatened her in a series of text messages when she left their Bradford home last October, taking the children with her, after finding his mistress at the house.

The man told his mother-in-law: “If I see her, I am going to break her jaw and put her in hospital for the rest of her life. Tell her, I am going to kill her. Her grave is ready for her.”

Judge Durham Hall said the man only admitted causing his wife actual bodily harm because he could not explain away her injuries on the police photos.

The woman did not consent to sex. “You wholly eroded her freedom – having subjected a woman to such fear and threats, she could not possibly be consenting,” the judge said. “This was a catalogue of violence and very serious threats to kill. The children were in the house when you beat and raped her.”

A restraining order was made banning the man from contacting his wife, except through solicitors, and his mother-in-law at all. He must sign on the sex offenders’ register for life.