A MAN left his girlfriend “bruised from head to toe” after launching a prolonged attack “of the upmost ferocity”.

Jaden O’Donnell told his victim he was “pure evil” as he punched her, strangled her, bit her, and smothered her with a dressing gown.

O’Donnell, 21, had been drinking vodka and smoking crack cocaine with his girlfriend at their Bournemouth flat when he “suddenly changed”.

He went to door of living room and closed it before telling his girlfriend she was “done for” and that she was “never going to leave this place”, said prosecutor Roderick Blain.

The defendant then picked up a pouf chair and threw it at her, before repeatedly punching her.

Once his girlfriend had fallen to the floor, O’Donnell then spat at her and started to smother her with a dressing gown, before putting his hands around her neck.

She recalled blacking out, and “fighting for breath” throughout the ordeal, which lasted “for some hours”, noted Mr Blain.

At one point, O’Donnell tapped a paper weight to her head and said he could “stove her head in if he wanted to”.

The victim recalled asking the defendant why he was attacking her, and he responded it was because he was "pure evil”.

O’Donnell stopped all her attempts to leave, and there was evidence he had barricaded the front door, the court heard.

When the police turned up, the woman was found crawling on the floor begging for help and saying, “please tell me it’s over”.

She was taken to hospital having suffered bruising and head trauma.

O’Donnell had escaped through the window of the flat but was later arrested.

He appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court on Friday, February 23, having admitted charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and intentional strangulation.

There, O’Donnell told the court he had no recollection of the incident, which occurred on November 26 of last year.

He said: “I think overusing the drugs, and lack of sleep, and I don’t often drink and I drunk quite a lot, it seems like it might have been some kind of mental break down.”

Representing the defendant, Nick Robinson noted he had struggled with his mental health, and that there was a potential diagnosis of complex PTSD.

Mr Robinson said: “He is so deeply ashamed and embarrassed about his behaviour.

“While he deserves a further period in prison, I invite your honour to reduce the sentence, not because of his mental health and potential diagnosis, but this is also out of character, comparing it to how he was in the relationship before, and his record.”

The court heard O’Donnell had one previous conviction for heroin possession. 

Judge Robert Pawson said there had been previous allegations of domestic violence against the defendant made by his mother, but she had declined to pursue them.

Judge Pawson concluded: “On the night of November 26, you launched an attack of the upmost ferocity on your victim – a woman in her own home.

“The fact that you don’t recall your state of mine doesn’t mean you didn’t intend to do what you did.

“The attack lasted for probably hours. Her whole body, head to toe, was covered in bruising.

“At one point at least, you strangled her until she blacked out, she unsurprisingly thought she was going to die.

“Some might say that this case has been significantly undercharged, but that’s not for me to say.

“It’s a bad a case of domestic violence in the context of actual bodily harm as there could be.”

O’Donnell, of Durdells Gardens in Bournemouth, was jailed for two years and nine months.

A restraining order lasting 12 years was made.