AN angry man assaulted his partner, leaving her injured and bleeding, as she visited him at the tent in which he was living.

The woman had gone to see 38-year-old James MacDonald in Workington on the afternoon of August 26 last year. At that time, MacDonald was living in a tent at the rear of a fire station in the town’s Moorclose area.

“They had had an ongoing relationship which was stormy to say the least,”  Tim Evans, prosecuting, told Carlisle Crown Court.

“He has a previous conviction relating to her. He had apologised to her for the previous incident and asked her to come and see him.

“When she turned up, rather than being friendly and apologetic, he became angry, causing her to immediate become fearful. He then assaulted her.”

Injuries sustained by the woman had been photographed.

“There is a black right eye and underneath it a couple of marks on her forehead, nose and, it seems, some bruising on her left shoulder,” Mr Evans told the court.

“He grabbed her by the throat and started to strangle her. She could feel herself, she says, suffocating. She managed to kick him away. He broke the hold when she did that.

“He then punched her again and seems to have come to his senses and stopped. He appeared to be worried about what he had done to her, visibly injuring her. He helped to clean her up and said he would buy her some alcohol.”

The woman went home and reported the incident to police after staff at her supported living accommodation saw the facial injuries.

MacDonald, of Peter Street, Whitehaven, admitted assault and non-fatal strangulation when he was brought to court.

In an impact statement, the woman had said: “He always apologises to me, saying ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again’, and I believe him every time.

"But it’s getting more and more and he’s marking me now when he does it.”

The woman feared she would be branded a 'grass' for reporting what had happened. “I’ve realised now that he’s the one in the wrong. He’s hit a woman, so I’m not a grass really,” she had stated.

“He has said sorry to me, and I’ve accepted his apology,” added the woman. “He’s always ‘sorry’ and he always does it again.”

The court heard MacDonald had 16 previous convictions for 26 offences and, said Mr Evans: “It is the record of a man who drinks and loses control of his temper.”

MacDonald’s previous violence against the woman had involved a headbutt, which caused her to fall to the floor. “Unhappily, there were children who witnessed that,” said Mr Evans.

Defence barrister Anthony Parkinson said MacDonald’s guilty pleas were the real mitigation in his case. MacDonald had not committed any offences from 2004 to 2015, when he lived in Nottingham, was in full-time work and had a relationship.

But he lost his employment when moving back to Cumbria, there was misuse of alcohol and various drugs, and, said Mr Parkinson: “His life spiralled out of control.”

Recorder Julian Shaw jailed MacDonald for 17 months, and banned him from having any contact with the woman for five years under the terms of a restraining order.

Recorder Shaw told MacDonald: “Depressingly she has been a previous victim of your uncontrollable temper. You are unable to control yourself whether through drink, whether through drugs, whether through anger.”