A DAD who bit his ex girlfriend on the throat in vicious sadistic attack has been jailed.

After taking a cocktail of drink and cocaine, 27-year-old Hayden Morris forced his terrified victim to flee her own home after he throttled her causing her to fear for her life and put his fingers in her mouth to stop her screaming.

When the victim bit his fingers he retaliated by biting her on the throat.

However, a neighbour was alerted by her screams and called the police. Morris was later arrested in a nearby garden.

Jailing Morris for 21 months a judge described it as “a sustained and vicious assault upon your erstwhile partner.

“The court accepts it is was an isolated offence and you have no history of any form of violence but in the court’s judgement it was particularly unpleasant.

“It was perceived by your victim to be sadistic. You were in control and in control of her and exploded and saw a red mist,” said Judge David Aubrey, QC.

He added, “You drank heavily during the evening and I’m told you had consumed cocaine.”

Judge Aubrey said that in her poignant impact statement the victim said that in A&E she did not know “which part of my body is hurting the most” and she had to relive “the scariest moments of my life” in front of her mum when telling the police.

After being attacked mum in the kitchen of her St Helens home she fled.

“It should have been her sanctuary. It was nothing of the sort on the evening in question.”

He said that “such was her fear” that she she desperately climbed over a fence in her back garden to escape him and ran down the alleyway but he caught her up and continued his attack, inflicting more injuries including serious ligament damage to her knee.

The judge told Morris that notwithstanding the drink and cocaine he had taken he was in control and when he was choking her in the alley he asked her to nod if she knew and was aware of what he was doing.

“You must have appreciated the affect and impact that your hands around her throat were having upon her.”

Liverpool Crown Court heard that because of the attack on September 21 last year Miss Hebden, who has a young son, has been unable to watch news items about George Floyd or Black Lives Matter as it makes her vividly recall him “taunting her wit his hands around her neck telling her to just nod.”

Morris, of Robina Road, St Helens, whose current partner is pregnant, pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm.

The judge imposed an indefinite restraining order to keep away from the victim.

Michael Stephenson, prosecuting, told how the couple had been in a relationship for about a year but it cooled after a trip to Berlin in April last year.

They had remained friends and in September she had been contemplating resuming their relationship.

On September 20 the victim, a laboratory worker, went out for a drink with a male work colleague to The Cricketer’s Arms and as Morris seemed perturbed about that. She invited him to join them.

While they were there Morris drank six pints and she left alone and went home at about 11.30pm.

He suddenly appeared in her hall asking why she had left and was argumentative.

They argued in the kitchen and when she went to push past him he grabbed hold of her and they then both pushed each other before she slapped him on the cheek and he punched her to her left eye causing her to fall to the floor.

He would not let her out the front door and they were both pushing each other.

“He then punched her again right handed to her left eye causing her to bang her head on the wall near the stairs and she fell on the stairs,” said Mr Stephenson.

“The argument went back into the kitchen and he then took a knife out of a drawer and threatened to stab himself with it. She said he did not threaten her but his actions did scare her.

“She used the subterfuge of going for a cigarette to get permission to go into her own rear garden.

"She knew she could not leave by the back gate as it was looked but she went over the fence into a neighbour’s garden to get into the entry to get away. Unfortunately he followed.

“As she ran down the entry he grabbed her from behind and this caused her to fall to the ground.”

Mr Stephenson said that was when she sustained her most serious injury as she badly injured her knee ligaments.

“He was concerned about her making noise and to restrain her he put both hands around her throat and was squeezing.”

Morris told her to nod if she knew what he was saying. “He let go of her throat and as soon as he did she screamed as loudly as she could. Fortunately that was heard by a neighbour, Amy Nelson.

“He responded by putting two or three of his fingers down her throat and she was struggling to breathe and did the only thing open to her, she bit the fingers he had stuck in her mouth. He was holding her down with his body and began to bite her throat in retaliation for her biting his fingers.”

Mr Stephenson said she managed to scream again and the next thing she recalled was the police arriving. Morris was arrested in a neighbour’s garden and when interviewed said he had not been intoxicated and gone to her home as he was worried about her welfare.

He said they argued and she started the violence and he would be claiming self-defence.

At hospital it was found his victim was a bite mark to her neck, a damaged knee as well as swelling and bruising to her face and body.

In an impact statement she told how before the incident she had moved to another laboratory

but because of her knee injury she had had to revert to her previous role and even that was limited because of her condition.

The incident had affected her and her young son and partly because of the pandemic she has not yet had the surgery she needs to repair the ligament damage and takes painkillers.

Philip Astbury, defending, said that Morris, who has no previous convictions, was “ashamed and remorseful.”

He said the couple’s relationship had been “unhealthy and destructive” and he accepted his cocaine misuse.

“He accepts it was a sustained attack with a very unpleasant injury but it was not the bite that caused the grievous bodily harm.”

His previous partner said she had never seen obsessive and jealous behaviour in him and he had never been violent.

His substance mis-use had led to a deterioration in his mental health and he had been adversely affectedly the loss of his grandparents leading to a diagnosis of depression. He cares for his son and could be assisted by the probation service.