SOHAM man Sean Hilton – standing trial for the murder of his girlfriend Kim Fuller – tried to strangle and stab his ex-wife during a two-year reign of abuse, a court has heard. He also tried to throttle his six-year-old stepdaughter from another relations

SOHAM man Sean Hilton - standing trial for the murder of his girlfriend Kim Fuller - tried to strangle and stab his ex-wife during a two-year reign of abuse, a court has heard.

He also tried to throttle his six-year-old stepdaughter from another relationship and her mother had to drag him off.

Hilton's ex-wife, Teresa Edwards, broke down in tears as she relived the terrifying attacks during their two-year marriage at his trial at Cambridge Crown Court.

Speaking from behind a screen she told how she suffered migraines from being constantly punched in the head by Hilton who once threw her so hard against a bathroom towel rail she ended up in hospital.

"I would wonder what was going to happen from one day to the next," she told the court. "His favourite was to punch me around the head, to the extent I would be left with serious migraines. But he would always hit the side of my face so no-one would see.

"One day I told him I was going to leave him and he said 'if you go I will find you and break both your legs'. I never went to the police because I was so frightened of what he would do afterwards."

On one occasion Mrs Edwards said he pushed her onto a settee and put his hands round her throat.

"The more I kicked the more he pushed down," she said. "He also tried to throttle me in the bedroom. I had to go to the doctor because I couldn't speak.

"One day I was in the bathroom doing some cleaning and he was arguing about something. He lifted me up and threw me against the towel rail. I ran into the street and the next thing I remember is waking up in hospital. He came back a day later as if nothing had happened."

Mrs Edwards finally left Hilton in 1994 but when he returned to the house on one occasion to visit their son he tried to stab her.

"I had hold of the blade trying to stop him putting it in me," she told the court.

"I struggle to go anywhere that is crowded because I am scared he will be behind me."

Hilton's second wife, Carol, told the court how Hilton tried to strangle her six-year-old daughter.

"She was in the sitting room and he pushed her down between the chairs, sat on her body and put his hands round her throat," she said. "I dragged him off."

Hilton, 39, of Brook Street, Soham denies the murder of his girlfriend Kim Fuller on March 3 last year.

Miss Fuller, 34, died from asphyxia and her body was found three days later dumped on a disused airfield in Norfolk.

The trial continues.