A thug who hounded and assaulted his ex-partner of 19 years has been spared a jail sentence.

A judge told Lee Brindle the offences merited a prison sentence but agreed to suspend it.

The 45-year-old was originally accused of cutting up Angela Yardley’s clothes and leaving an open bottle of wine under her mattress at her Gravesend home.

But his pleas to two offences of assault by beating, damaging two mobile phones and breaching a non-molestation order were accepted.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the mother-of-four “called time” on the long relationship in 2015.

Brindle, of Ingoldsby Road, Gravesend, continued to see the children regularly, but he assaulted her twice and damaged her phones.

Prosecutor Simon Taylor said Brindle became aggressive when he went to the house on July 30 last year.

He ripped a gold chain from her neck and grabbed a bag from her shoulder, causing a bruise.

Because of his jealousy he had wanted to look at her two iPhones.

“You have behaved in a thoroughly unpleasant and bullying way to your partner of many years when the relationship was in its dying stages..." - Judge Adele Williams

He returned later and kept asking “Who’s the man?” in a reference to her new partner.

He went back again on August 2 last year and asked her to sit in his car.

She reluctantly did so and he became angry about her new relationship. He struck her on her right arm.

She was granted a non-molestation order which had conditions of not contacting her or going within 100 metres of her home.

But two days after it was made she received a phone call in which he accused her of lying in her statement and added: “I am going to have a field day with all this.”

Ms Yardley said in a victim statement that she felt intimidated by Brindle and afraid of him. “I just want a life away from him,” she added. “I want to be safe in my own home.”

Bartholomew O’Toole, defending, said Brindle was “a hard working man of modest intelligence”.

Suspending 12 months imprisonment for two years and ordering 100 hours unpaid work, Judge Adele Williams said: “You have behaved in a thoroughly unpleasant and bullying way to your partner of many years when the relationship was in its dying stages.

“You have shown very little insight into your offending and no remorse. You have sought to justify and minimise your behaviour. It is the accumulative effect and combination of offences which form the mischief here and merit a sentence of imprisonment.”