A WOMAN who was brutally beaten and strangled saw her violent ex jailed for two-and-a-half years - and revealed: "I can still feel his hands around my neck."

The 26-year-old victim was left so battered and bruised by burly Dean Murphy that her young daughter did not recognise her, Teesside Crown Court heard.

She suffered a six-hour ordeal in which she was punched, kicked, stamped on, hit with glass and throttled before somehow escaping from the flat.

The mum said: "I still struggle to sleep as this has tortured me. I'm on sleeping pills and anti-depressants, and suffer nightmares and flashbacks.

"I didn't think I was going to get out alive. I remember Dean strangling me and kicking me in the head when I was on the floor, and blood coming from my mouth.

"I feel lucky to be alive. It has left me terrified he will get out and find me. I thought he was going to kill me, and I'm scared he will try it again."

"My little girl has had to see me black and blue. She knew voice, but she didn't recognise me, and that was heartbreaking. She just stared at me."

Murphy, of Borough Road, Middlesbrough, admitted charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and making threats to kill at an earlier court appearance.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told the 38-year-old tattooed brute: "Men who attack partners in this way are cowards. You gave her a thorough beating."

The court heard that the couple had been in an on-off relationship for ten years, and the woman visited him as a friend after he sent text messages.

It is not known what sparked the violence, but the dark-haired mum recalls being angry at Murphy being on his phone when he had asked her to visit him.

She remembered him screaming in her face "like a psycho", prosecutor Jenny Haigh said, him throttling her in his kitchen, and thinking she would be killed.

Neighbours heard him yelling: "I could do two years for this, but I won't be going down for beating you, it'll be for murder. I'm going to snap your neck."

John Nixon, mitigating, said there had been no issues or violence between the couple before, and told the court: "This was quite out of character."

He added: "He accepts completely he lost his temper and said things which he regrets, and she was left with these unpleasant if not life-threatening injuries.

"I hope the complainant can understand that the defendant - who had never wronged her in the past - wishes he could turn back the clock.

"He says, through me, there is no prospect whatsoever of him seeking her out to cause her further harm over the years to come."

A ten-year restraining order was also imposed this afternoon to keep Murphy away from her.