A VIOLENT criminal who put a rope around his girlfriend’s neck and joked he was going to kill her in a DIY store viciously attacked her days later because he was bored, a court heard.

Jonathan Talmage, of Bridgeman Road in Blacon, repeatedly threatened to kill his then-girlfriend Zoe Evans, before beating her black and blue and displacing one of her teeth.

Appearing before Chester Crown Court on Monday the 22-year-old was sentenced to 21 months behind bars after putting Miss Evans through weeks of harassment before beating her and threatening her with a screwdriver.

The court heard how on the evening of December 18 last year, Talmage punched and kicked his victim at her Neston home, pushing her on the sofa and violently stabbing the upholstery around her. Just days before, the couple, who initially enjoyed an amicable relationship after meeting on Facebook, were on a shopping trip in Homebase when Talmage put a rope around her neck and said he could kill her if he wanted to.

Prosecuting, John Williams, said on the night of the attack Talmage became aggressive, before attacking her because she asked him to turn some music down.

“She was shouting out for him to stop. She went to a neighbour’s house, and when the neighbour saw her he said that her face was ‘all messed up’.”

But when Talmage was later arrested at Miss Evans’s mother’s home in Blacon, he claimed she made up the assault to try to get him back in jail and because he had refused to take part in IVF treatment.

Peter Moss, defending, said Talmage, who pleaded guilty to one count of harassment and one count of causing actual bodily harm, accepted he had behaved in an appalling way and was trying to move on with his life.

“At the time he was suffering from depression and they had both been drinking,” said Mr Moss.

“He realises he cannot carry on with the diverse way of offending he has done in the past.”

Talmage, who has a lengthy criminal record, was just 18 when he was sentenced to 30 months in a young offenders institute for five robberies where he intimidated victims and stole their MP3 players and mobile phones.

He was also made subject to a restraining order for the next five years.