A young mum was stripped, gagged and badly beaten in a “horrific and sustained” four-hour attack while her two-year-old daughter was in the next room.

Rachel McGoldrick’s ex-partner Thomas Old is today starting a 13-and-a-half-year jail sentence for the shocking onslaught which left her in hospital with a catalogue of terrible injuries.

The Bournemouth University student’s back was broken in two places and her eye socket broken when Old tried to gouge out her right eye. Medics also reported bleeding on her brain, a broken nose, broken finger and significant cuts and bruising.

Her mouth was gagged, her hands tied behind her back and she was strangled into unconsciousness during the terrifying ordeal in her Wellington Road, Bournemouth flat on November 27 last year.

Bournemouth Crown Court was told the incident came after Old had bombarded Miss McGoldrick with vile texts and hacked her Facebook account to post pornographic pictures of her.

Prosecuting, Rufus Taylor described the crime as “a horrific and sustained attack over a number of hours driven by a perverse sense of jealousy.”

Sentencing, Judge Peter Johnson told Old: “You thought she had been seeing her ex-partner in a non-platonic way. Rachel was subjected to a sadistic, sustained and brutal attack – there are no adequate adjectives to describe what you did to her.

“She thought you were going to rape her. All the time this happened her young child was in the next room. You were striking her while she was bound and bleeding – you showed her no mercy whatsoever.”

Judge Johnson said it is “inevitable” that Miss McGoldrick, a midwifery student, will suffer “long-term, if not permanent, psychological damage.”

The court heard Old, 23, of Shaftesbury Road, Bournemouth, let himself into Miss McGoldrick’s flat with a key he had stolen, taking gaffer tape and rope with him.

After the ordeal, he forced her to lie to police, claiming she had been attacked by strangers in the street, but officers did not believe the story.

A search of the flat revealed blood-spattered walls in the bedroom and blood in the bathroom where he had forced his victim to shower before taking her to hospital.

Defending, David Richards said Old had ADHD as a child and was unpopular at school, eventually being sent to a residential school in Kendall.

He said prolonged use of cannabis and more recent use of steroids had made his paranoia worse and he feared rejection.

Mr Richards said Old had started his own business and “bitterly regrets what he did and hates himself for it.”