A POLICEMAN attacked his girlfriend - a fellow officer - with a carving knife after she tried to get him to move out of her home, a court heard.Former police constable Peter Marley, 34, was jailed for five years after admitting causing grievous bodily harm with intent to his ex-girlfriend, 28-year-old Diane Frew, at her home in Chiltern Close, Colchester, on May 15 this year.

A POLICEMAN attacked his girlfriend - a fellow officer - with a carving knife after she tried to get him to move out of her home, a court heard.

Former police constable Peter Marley, 34, was jailed for five years after admitting causing grievous bodily harm with intent to his ex-girlfriend, 28-year-old Diane Frew, at her home in Chiltern Close, Colchester, on May 15 this year.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard that the incident has left Miss Frew, who suffered a broken arm in the attack, with a fear of being around police officers and she will have a metal rod in her arm for the rest of her life.

The court heard how Marley was in debt to the tune of £28,000 at the time of the knife-attack.

Sentencing Marley, Recorder John Akast told how Miss Frew was left with “bruises just about everywhere visible on her face” adding that if she had not been so agile in defending herself “this could have resulted in her death”.

He said: “It is a near tragedy to see you here, a police officer no less.”

Prosecutor Hugh Vass said the couple's relationship had been turbulent in the lead-up to the attack, with Marley becoming jealous and violent on a number of occasions.

A tape recording was played to the court of Miss Frew's call to the emergency services during the attack in which, through the screams of terror, she uttered the words “get off me”.

Mr Vass said Miss Frew had already ended the relationship in advance of the incident on May 15. But, he said, when she arrived home after a night out with a female friend at 3am she found Marley in her bedroom.

Marley told Miss Frew that he had taken 100 paracetamol tablets and then tried to cuddle her.

Mr Vass said she told Marley, who resigned from Essex Police on Saturday, that she did not care by that stage whether he died or not. At that stage, said Mr Vass, Marley turned from “pleading to angry”.

Miss Frew went downstairs to contact the police on her mobile telephone. Marley followed her downstairs but went into the kitchen, where Miss Frew heard him going through the cutlery draw.

She then saw him holding the eight-inch two-pronged knife at which point Miss Frew dropped her mobile telephone to protect herself.

Mr Vass told how Marley stood above her with the knife and began stabbing at her abdomen. Miss Frew, he said, kept pushing with her hands and legs believing Marley was trying to kill her.

The knife fell to the floor and Miss Frew ran out of the door in her pyjamas where she was met by uniformed officers.

It remains uncertain whether the puncture wounds to her right arm were the result of a stab wound from the knife, or the result of bone splinters piercing the skin inside-out in the aftermath of her having her arm broken.

Alexendra Felix, mitigating for Marley, said he was in debt and had been suffering anxiety as a result of seeing road traffic accidents during his job as a police officer.

She said: “Years of feelings of loss and anguish came together on this night.”

After the case, Liam Brigginshaw, Assistant Chief Constable for Crime at Essex Police said: “This is a matter of grave concern. There are no excuses for domestic violence and it is unacceptable. If the matter could be made any worse, it is certainly aggravated that the person responsible was a police officer.”

Marley was also jailed for 28 days, to run concurrently, after admitting throwing a brick through Miss Frew's Renault car.

n Essex Police has a policy of releasing photographs of criminals sentenced to more than three years in jail. But yesterday the force said that they had deleted Marley's photograph from their files.