Raging ex threatened to throw woman off a bridge and strangled her after she ended relationship

The couple had been seeing each other for two years and they had been living together for two months when in April of this year she decided she wanted to split up.

She told 19-year-old Tommy Horsefield that he needed to move out and should collect his belongings from her home. He turned aggressive and began shouting at her: “You can’t cope without me, you will kill yourself.”

Prosecuting the case at Leeds Crown Court, Benjamin Bell said Horsefield then grabbed the back of her neck with one hand and used his other to grip his fingers around her throat, shouting at her to stop crying and that it was her “own fault”.

The court heard that she almost blacked out from the pressure on her throat.

The pair then went for a walk to discuss matters, but he became riled again and was shouting and spitting at her. She tried to walk away but he grabbed her and dragged her back before slamming her her against the railing of a foot bridge and threatened to throw her over.

Horsefield, of Chequers Close, Pontefract, was later arrested and initially denied the offending. He later admitted a charge of intentional strangulation and assault by beating on the day his trial was due to begin.

No mitigation was offered by his barrister James Littlehales, after Judge Ray Singh said he would not be locking him up.

Judge Singh told Horsefield: “It would have been helpful and stood you in good stead if you had pleaded guilty right at the outset.

"Not only did you strangle the complainant, you in essence called her a liar by pleading not guilty. She was entitled to finish your relationship but you were not prepared to let that happen.

"You verbally abused her and grabbed her by the throat and squeezed. She struggled for breath and her vision became blurred. It’s a cruel way of asserting dominance over a person.”

He jailed Horsefield for 14 months, suspended for two years, gave him 27 rehabilitation days and a restraining order for five years to keep him away from the victim.