An abuser left his former partner suicidal, she told a court.

The woman had to endure Anthony Sexton’s bullying and violent moods for months before he was arrested and remanded last year.

Sexton, 34, was convicted earlier this year of controlling and coercive behaviour towards her, smashing up her flat, and leaving her friend with a broken nose and wandering around outside Aldi stripped to his pants. It was the 17th time the man’s nose had been broken, the court heard.

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The woman visited him in hospital in August last year, when he tried to get her to withdraw her support for the prosecution.

In a victim personal statement read to Oxford Crown Court on Friday (March 3) by prosecutor Nick Ferrari, the woman said she had suffered ‘constant flashbacks’ to Sexton stamping on her face during an attack in her Jericho flat in July last year.

“I felt I would never be able to overcome that battle I was having with my own mind,” she said.

She told the court she made an attempt on her own life last September. It was not until she was admitted to hospital that she ‘realised the extent of the impact’ of her former partner’s behaviour on her, she said.

Coming to court to give evidence in the trial was ‘100 per cent one of the worst experiences’ of her life, she said. During the trial, she told jurors that Sexton was an ‘animal’.

Jailing him for four years and imposing a restraining order banning him from contacting the woman or her friend for five years, Recorder John Ryder KC told Sexton: “It’s plain what you did had an enduring effect upon her. She said during the course of the trial that your behaviour made her feel nervous and worthless.

“The reality is that you exploited her; you used her and you abused her.

“You caused her to do exactly as you wanted by threat and occasional violence.

“You simply used her flat as a place to live and your residence there and your behaviour during it caused her to be anxious, apprehensive and fearful in her own home.”

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Mitigating, Peter du Feu said his client recognised he had a ‘profound drink problem’. His mother, who was said to have previously taken out a restraining order to protect her from his drink-related bad behaviour, ‘would have him back’ but he needed to stop drinking.

Sexton, of Stowford Road, Oxford, was convicted of coercive and controlling behaviour, causing actual bodily harm, common assault, criminal damage and witness intimidation.

For support, contact the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org.