A knife-wielding thug who threatened to slit his ex-partner's throat has been banned from contacting her for 15 years.

Michael Carlton, 50, committed the terrifying offence after kicking his way into Vicki Ritchie's Distington home on September 6, Carlisle Crown Court heard in an earlier hearing.

As she made a desperate attempt to fend him off, the victim suffered a nasty finger wound. Carlton was jailed for 30 months after he admitted unlawful wounding and threatening to kill her.

The defendant was back in the dock at the same crown court yesterday as the Crown Prosecution Service made an application for a restraining order to protect the victim after Carlton is freed.

Prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told Judge Peter Davies that Miss Ritchie had originally not wanted a restraining order but after further consideration she had decided she did want one.

She felt it would offer her extra protection. The lawyer suggested an order lasting ten years, which would ban the defendant from making any contact whatsoever with Miss Ritchie, and prohibit him from going within 100 metres of her home.

After hearing the prosecutor's application, and considering background details of the case, Judge Davies ruled that the order should last for the next 15 years.

It was one of the longest restraining orders imposed in the Cumbrian courts in a domestic violence case. Before the case concluded, Carlton shouted from the dock that a suggestion to ban him entirely from Distington would mean he could not visit his elderly mother, whom he said he cared for.

The judge accepted that the defendant's point was reasonable, and that there was no need to ban Carlton from Distington, provided he abided by the terms of the restraining order.

But Judge Davies told him: “If you breach the terms of the order, you will be subject to criminal liability and a maximum term of five years.”

In the earlier hearing, the court was told how Carlton and his victim had separated after being together for a quarter of a century.

Miss Ritchie described his behaviour as "controlling and manipulative", and over the previous five years "volatile" due to his drinking.

Drunk on the day of the attack, he had told her: "If you contact me again I will slit your throat." Pinning her against a kitchen unit, he grabbed three knives and came at her with each of them, aiming blows at her neck.

She later told police that she felt at that point that she was in a struggle for her life.