A “controlling” man who hit his partner over the head with a wooden table leg after she told him she was leaving him has been jailed for nine months.

Samantha Segger suffered a cut which extended from her hairline on to her forehead and went right down to the bone, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

After the incident she refused attempts by her partner Kevin Sandford to take her to hospital and went to a neighbour’s house covered in blood.

She was treated by paramedics before being taken to hospital where she had nine stitches in the wound, said Sheilagh Davies, prosecuting.

Sandford, 33, of The Blundens, Stoke-by-Nayland admitted wounding Miss Segger on August 15 last year and was jailed for nine months, less 74 days, and made the subject of a five year restraining order banning him from contacting Miss Segger or going to Boxford.

Sentencing him Recorder Joseph Boothby described him as “self important and controlling” and said he ohad struck Miss Segger with “extreme force.”

“If there is any resistance to you, your temper flies out of control and it did fly out of control on this occasion,” said the judge.

“This kind of controlling violence is no longer tolerated in this country as it once was neither is the use of a weapon against a defenceless woman.”

Miss Davies told the court Miss Segger and Sandford had been in a relationship for 13 years since she was 15.

“She felt he was exerting control and influence over her such as stopping her having a mobile phone, stopping her going out with friends and wanting to know what she was doing at all times,” said Miss Davies.

On one occasion he had also locked her in the house, she said.

In August Miss Segger told Sandford she wanted more freedom and he reacted by accusing her of having an affair. She then told him the relationship was over and that she was going to find new accommodation.

On August 15 she was vacuuming the house when Sandford hit her over the head with a wooden table leg that had been converted into a baseball bat causing her to fall to the ground.

He told her she wasn’t leaving him and had then hit her on the leg with the bat and then struck her a third time when she put up her arms to protect her face.

Graham Brown for Sandford his client had never used violence towards Miss Segger in the past and had been acting out of character on the day in question.

“His behaviour on August 15 was the result of frustration and inability to deal with what was going on. He realises he shouldn’t have reacted in the way he did,” said Mr Brown. “It was an instantaneous reaction,” he added.