A possessive boyfriend who held a knife to his girlfriend's throat and smashed up her house when a male friend messaged her on Facebook has been jailed for psychological abuse.
Ian Brewster, 27, from Hyde in Greater Manchester, went berserk when Kayleigh Rutter received the message, and screamed at her: 'Get him around here and I will stab you first and make him watch, then I will stab him through the neck.'
In another incident, mother-of-one Miss Rutter, also 27, was pinned to a bed and had a blade held to her throat leaving her in fear of her life.
She blamed Brewster's controlling behaviour for her subsequently losing a custody battle over her daughter from a previous relationship. She later moved into a women's refuge to get away from him.
Miss Rutter said: 'His actions have made me feel scared and frightened. I also feel very angry as he has messed things up for me - I have lost a custody battle for my daughter, which is why I didn't want the police involved.
'I am always on edge now and in constant fear. At the moment, I just feel numb - I don't know how to feel.'
At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, heavily tattooed Brewster blamed his paranoid behaviour on him being falsely branded a sex offender at the age of 18.
He was jailed for 16 months after he was found guilty of controlling or coercive behaviour against Miss Rutter plus other charges of assault upon another ex-girlfriend and criminal damage to her TV.
The court heard Miss Rutter's ordeal began just days after the pair began a relationship in April last year.
Joshua Bowker, prosecuting, said: He asked her to go to the shops and get groceries but when she did, he accessed her Facebook account and sent messages to all her male friends saying that they couldn't contact her anymore.
'To justify this to her, he said that he had been cheated on in the past and if a male ever sent her a message, he would threaten to smash her phone in her face.
'On one occasion, he punched the bedroom door three times, creating holes in it. Another time, one of the defendant's friends called her and he put his foot through the door.
'Miss Rutter said he was going 'psycho' and he pinned her to the bed and had a knife against her throat. She said that she thought she was going to die.'
Mr Bowker said Brewster would hide knives around the home so only he could reach them.
He continued: 'On May 3, [Miss Rutter] received a phone call from a friend using her boyfriend's mobile and the defendant became angry again.
'Also, at 18 years of age, he was accused of sexual assault. No further action was taken at that time but the accusation has been used by a number of people in his life as a weapon against him. On social media, people have shared photos of him saying that he is a paedophile.
'As a result of this vigilante behaviour on social media, he has spent quite a lot of time looking over his shoulder. He did not commit any such offence, but that does not matter in the court of public opinion and Facebook.
'He has been falsely painted as a paedophile and has been assaulted because of that.'
Sentencing, Miss Recorder Samantha Presland told Brewster: 'Over a period of three weeks, you engaged in pretty relentless, violent, coercive and controlling behaviour.
'You would regularly threaten Miss Rutter with a knife, not let her see her friends, and you threatened to stab her and her friends. She eventually had to go and live with her mother.
-Dailymail