by staff reporter

Last updated 12:18, Monday, 15 September 2008

A brutal husband has been jailed for nine months for beating up his wife so badly that she thought she was going to die after she refused to give him oral sex.

David John Williamson, 31, attacked his 30-year old wife Fiona on the night he returned to their home in Sandersons Croft, Kirkby Thore, near Penrith, after they had been living apart because of his violent behaviour.

She had agreed to have him back after and social workers told her it would be safe for her to do so because he was responding so well to anger management classes.

But, Carlisle Crown Court heard on Friday, that on their first night back together, he returned home from the pub and attacked her in a drunken rage after she refused his request for oral sex.

“He lost his temper, grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the floor,” prosecutor Dick Binstead told the court.

“Then he dragged her by her hair round the floor like a rag doll, kicking her, punching her, biting her and putting his hands over her mouth and nose so she couldn’t breathe.”

Mrs Williamson managed to escape only when, after about 45 minutes, he took a swing at her and missed, and hurt his hand when he hit the floor instead.

“Such was her fear that she believed that if the assault had gone on any longer she would have been killed,” Mr Binstead said.

The police were called by neighbours who, even though it was past midnight, heard her screams for help.

Defence barrister Brendan Burke said that although Williamson had 11 previous convictions none was for direct physical assault and none was against his wife.

He said that Williamson was well respected at the British Gypsum plant at Kirkby Thore, where he worked as a security man.

The judge, Recorder John Murray, told Williamson: “I have good reason to believe that when you are not drunk you are a decent hard working man, but no human being should be treated in the way you treated your wife.”

The couple have split up.