South Yorkshire martial arts fighter hospitalised girlfriend in lockdown rage

Martyn Toyne threw the woman against a radiator, kneed her in the face and then grabbed her by the throat at her home in Rotherham, on April 14.

"He then apologised and said he couldn't believe what he had done," prosecutor Richard Thynne said, on Wednesday.

Five days earlier, Toyne slapped her in the face, blacking her eye and cutting her lip, before hurling a “large glass ornament” at her.

"Fortunately it missed her and smashed on the wall," Mr Thynne said. "He warned her to "stop talking our business to other people.""

On another occasion, Toyne pushed her into a kitchen sink so hard the impact fractured two vertebrae in her spine.

A friend persuaded the woman to contact police after a hospital visit revealed the extent of her injuries.

She was left with two fractured vertebrae, two fractured ribs, a broken nose, facial bruising and "narrowing in her neck as a result of the strangulation."

She spent six days in hospital and had to be readmitted following an infection in late April.

Mr Thyne said the former mixed martial arts fighter made partial admissions to the less serious offences.

"He told police "if I intended to hurt her the injuries would be much more serious" as indeed they turned out to be."

He said: "He was controlling and used to say he would look after her.

"She has nightmares that the defendant was going to come for her, and flashbacks of what had happened.

"She doesn't want to think about what would happen when he is released from prison."

The court heard he has previous convictions for assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 2012 and two breaches of a restraining order in 2014.

"I didn't want this," Toyne's victim told him via the video-link.

"I know sweetheart, neither did I," Toyne said from HMP Doncaster.

Amy Earnshaw, mitigating, said: "He knows what he has done is terrible. He will have to live with that.”

She said the "hard-working" warehouse manager went from working six days a week to nothing and "he became very frustrated and this affected his temper."

He was trying to keep the woman, who was recovering from drink and drug addictions, "on the straight and narrow," and tensions arose when drugs were brought into the house, Ms Earnshaw said.

She said the father-of-five's mental health deteriorated after he was accidentally electrocuted in 2010, but he was now improving with medication.

"He felt trapped because he was unable to work and he always kept busy," Ms Earnshaw said.

Toyne, 38, of Oaks Lane, Rotherham, pleaded guilty to common assault, battery and two counts of GBH.

Judge Michael Slater said Toyne "had very limited person mitigation."

He sentenced him to a total of three years in prison and imposed a five year restraining order.