A MAN who launched a brutal and merciless attack on his pregnant partner was branded a "coward" by a judge who jailed him for two years.

Drunken bully Steven Bandeira, 34, assaulted his girlfriend in front of their two hysterical children days after Christmas last year.

He kicked her to the floor, repeatedly hit her with a phone when she tried to call the police, twice throttled her and dragged her down the stairs by her feet, screaming: "I'm going to f***ing knock you out."

Prosecutor Jenny Haigh told Teesside Crown Court that the victim suffered a suspected broken jaw, but doctors later discovered that it was soft tissue damage.

At hospital, it was found that she had bruising and pain to her lower back, thigh and arm, a sore neck, and was troubled by constant headaches.

She was frightened she had lost her baby at seven months because of the assault, but its heart-beat was "fine", Miss Haigh told the judge, Recorder Dafydd Enoch, QC.

Mr Recorder Enoch told Bandeira: "It was not a flash of temper. It was a sustained assault on a woman in her own home for absolutely no reason other than you lost your temper.

"She was 26 weeks pregnant with your child. It happened in front of your other children. It really was the act of a coward.

"The danger to the baby was obvious to anybody, including you. I don't care how drunk you were, that must have crossed your mind. To put an unborn child at risk in that way is unforgivable."

Bandeira, of Bush Street, Middlesbrough, admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and his lawyer, Robert Mochrie, said: "Had he been sober, this would not have happened. He commented he felt devastated at having assaulted his partner."