A MAN who drunkenly broke into a woman’s home and violently attacked her has been jailed for six years.

Victim Lily Hannah was forced to flee to a ledge three storeys high during the assault by Jason Williams, which took place in her Weymouth town centre home in the early hours.

The violent incident was described as a “determined attack” by a judge.

Williams, of Weston Road, Portland, was found guilty of burglary with intent to cause grievous bodily harm following a trial at Dorchester Crown Court last month. The 35-year-old also pleaded guilty to an offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The jury in the trial had heard how Williams had punched, head-butted and stamped on his on-off partner in the violent attack.

The couple had been together on and off for around four-and-a-half years at the time but were not living together and Williams forced his way into Miss Hannah’s home following a night out on September 26 last year by climbing a drainpipe and smashing a window.

The jury was told how Williams then punched her to the face and head-butted her and during the assault stamped on her and kicked her while she was on the ground.

Miss Hannah suffered two black eyes and bruising to the face and arm as well as a fractured nose.

She told jurors how she was eventually able to barricade herself in the bathroom and climbed out onto a ledge above a bay window that she said was ‘three storeys up’.

Williams followed her out but soon fled the scene after Miss Hannah’s cries for help alerted passers-by.

At Williams’ sentencing hearing, prosecutor Thomas Wilkins said Williams had previous convictions for inflicting grievous bodily harm, burglary, violent disorder and affray and had been assessed by the Probation Service as “posing a high risk of serious harm”.

Syan Ventom, representing the defendant, described the offence as an “aberration” and said there had not been an escalation of Williams’ offending in recent years. He added that his client, who has spent 195 days in remand in connection with the charges, was “haunted” by a fatal road traffic collision he had witnessed in 2008.

Judge Jonathan Fuller sentenced Williams to a total of six years in prison for the offences, with an extended licence period of an additional five years.

The judge told him: “Had she fallen from the roof, serious injury may have been caused or worse.”

He added: “This was a determined attack upon her because you felt aggrieved.”