A MAN who subjected his former lover to a prolonged and horrifying ordeal of humiliation and beatings has failed to have his four-year jail term cut.

Andrew John Fennon, 31, Banfields Road, Eston, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court in January to assaulting Tracey Atkinson.

London's Criminal Appeal Court yesterday rejected claims that the four-year jail term was "manifestly excessive".

Mr Justice Gibbs, sitting with Lord Justice Mantell and Justice Holman, said Fennon had four convictions for assault occasioning actual bodily harm on other victims.

"Miss Atkinson estimated that, during the whole of the period of the attack, she was subjected to some 20 separate assaults," the judge said.

The judge said Fennon and Miss Atkinson had a "turbulent" relationship for about four years, during which time they mostly lived together, although at the time of the assault they had separated.

In May last year, they had been drinking together and went back to her house with a Chinese meal. They got talking about associations she might have formed since their separation and, for no apparent reason, he began to attack Miss Atkinson.

Justice Gibbs said: "He punched her repeatedly about her face. She tried to crawl away and he kicked her about her body."

For up to two hours, he repeatedly attacked her to the point where she attempted to hide in a wardrobe to escape the attack.

In rejecting claims that the sentence was too long, Mr Justice Gibbs said: "It is difficult to over-estimate the distress and the ordeal the victim in this case must have undergone as a result of Fennon's prolonged assault and humiliation on her."