In May 2017, Forde Nehemia Jury (44) terrorised and beat the victim over a six-hour period, leaving her with two black eyes and a broken toe.
He was jailed but when he got out in March the pair soon reconnected — despite release conditions barring him from contacting the woman.
Jury and the victim began "rekindling" their relationship in May but things quickly went downhill, the Dunedin District Court heard yesterday.
Late on May 23, the pair were drinking wine and discussing their future as a couple.
"Out of the blue, he knocked her to the ground," a summary of facts said.
Jury straddled the woman, pinning her to the ground.
He punched her twice in the face while yelling obscenities at her.
And then it stopped.
Jury, the court heard, suddenly became remorseful.
"He apologised to the complainant and hugged her," police said.
The respite was short-lived as Jury again flew into a rage for no reason.
He struck the victim with his knee and as she lay on the floor shouted: "You’ll lie there and you’ll lie still."
Jury inflicted further blows, "whacking her across the face with an open hand".
As the victim tried to protect herself, the defendant kept her in the vulnerable position, driving his knee into her chest.
With blood gushing from her nose and above her eye, Jury picked up a metal lever from a nearby chair.
He held it over her and smashed it into the floor near her face.
"I’m going to kill you and I’m going to kill myself. No-one is getting out of here alive," the man told her.
The attack continued with Jury grabbing his victim by the hair and dragging her around the room.
He yanked so hard at one point that he pulled a "large clump" of hair from her scalp, the court heard.
As the victim eyed an escape and spotted her phone on a table, Jury warned her not to use it.
Finally, the defendant’s phone rang and while he was distracted, the woman escaped.
Though the abuse had finished, Jury’s vile behaviour had not.
While the victim called police, he urinated on her bed and put vegetation and rubbish in her covers.
Defence counsel Debbie Ericsson said her client did not recall any of the events of that evening.
"He recognises he cannot continue to ignore the underlying issues that he has, particularly in relation to anxiety," she said.
Ms Ericsson argued the attack did not constitute extreme violence but Judge Kevin Phillips did not accept that.
The victim received a broken nose, black eyes, split lip, cuts on her face and grazes and bruises on her body.
"She was a woman alone, she had you in her house ... she was perhaps at her most vulnerable," the judge said.
Jury was sentenced to three years five months’ imprisonment.
He also received his first strike under the three-strikes legislation.
