A VIOLENT bully who stabbed his partner during a drunken row at their home just weeks after beating his puppy to death has been jailed for 32 months.

Samantha Byers was so desperate to get away from Craig Curtis after he stabbed her foot with a fishing knife, bit her ear and tried to smother her that she jumped out of a first floor window, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Robert Sadd, prosecuting, said Curtis had attacked Miss Byers on May 4, just weeks after a passer-by found the body of Curtis’s Staffordshire bull terrier called Bruno wrapped in blood-stained sheets inside a black bin bag with blood around his nose and mouth.

Curtis, of Chapel Street, Exning, near Burwell, appeared before magistrates in August and was jailed for 18 weeks for cruelty and banned from keeping dogs for life.

The court heard that Curtis had strung Bruno up by his collar and battered him to death with a baseball bat after he urinated on the floor.

Curtis, 28, was jailed for 32 months after admitting unlawfully wounding Miss Byers.

Sentencing him, Judge Rupert Overbury described Curtis as a “drunken, violent bully” who enjoyed controlling and manipulating Miss Byers.

“You used violence or the threat of it to get your own way,” the judge said.

On May 4 Curtis had stabbed Miss Byers on the foot with a knife causing a nasty wound which needed three stitches and had then punched her round the head, tried to smother her and had bitten her ear, the judge added.

Mr Sadd said Curtis had been drinking heavily and had started ranting and raving at Miss Byers before stabbing her foot.

When her foot started bleeding Curtis had ordered her to clean herself up and had then told her she had 15 seconds to clean the blood off the carpet.

He had then struck her round the head, tried to smother her by putting his hand over her mouth and nose and had bitten her ear.

Miss Byers was so terrified that she jumped out of a first floor window.