A BRIERLEY Hill thug who punched and kicked his terrified girlfriend while in a drunken rage has been jailed.

Leslie Garbett - a man with a long list of previous convictions for offences including assault and wounding - left Natasha Jenkinson nursing a fractured cheekbone and severe bruising after he attacked her as she lay curled up in a ball on the ground.

The 37-year-old who saw red because he thought Miss Jenkinson had been flirting with doormen at one of the pub's they had visited earlier in the evening.

Builder Garbett stormed off and he launched into his "sustained and prolonged" attack on his partner when she returned later to the home they shared in Lindsey Place.

Bernard Linnemann, prosecuting, said Garbett had grabbed Miss Jenkinson around the throat in an earlier incident at the Corn Exchange in Merry Hill.

Then, when she came home, he again grabbed her by the throat before dragging her screaming by the hair into the living room.

Mr Linnemann told Wolverhampton Crown Court she thought he was in "some kind of a trance," as he rained punches and kicks on her face and body and her cries were heard by a neighbour who alerted police.

Garbett was arrested and later told police he had little recollection of the incident because of the amount of alcohol he had drunk during the evening.

Judge Amjad Nawaz told Garbett that no matter what he thought she had been doing when they were out together he had carried out a ferocious attack on his partner at a time when she must have been "extremely frightened."

He said Garbett had a history of violence and in the past had appeared in court for an attack on a previous partner Garbett admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm on Miss Jenkinson, common assault and breaching a suspended prison sentence for another incident involving violence.

The judge jailed him for 20 months for the two attacks on his former partner and ruled he must serve a further two months for breaching the earlier sentence.

Timothy Talbot-Webb, for Garbett, said his client was angry because he felt Miss Jenkinson, who had also been drinking heavily that evening, had been flirting and he was full of remorse for his actions.

The relationship between the couple who had a young child was now over, he added, while stressing Garbett was now taking steps to deal with his long standing alcohol problem.

Mr Talbot-Webb said: "He no longer associates with what he calls his crazy drinking buddies" and he is now determined - having set up a building and fencing business with friends - to put his life in order.