A VIOLENT boyfriend who threatened to scar his partner’s face with a hot iron or acid has been jailed for a horrifying two year campaign of terror.

Tayla White sent a video to his teenaged girlfriend which showed him pretending to dig up the grave of their dead child, who she had miscarried during their relationship.

He also sent her a video of him trashing and trying to set light to her home on the only night in which she dared to go out with her own friends. 

He controlled what she wore, who she spoke to and was constantly jealous and making false accusations of infidelity, Exeter Crown Court was told.

She was just 17 when she started the relationship and was so terrified by what happened in it that she wrote a victim impact statement saying it had put her off men for life.

White, aged 22, now of Bushy Grove Road, Watford, admitted coercive and controlling behaviour, criminal damage, non-fatal strangulation, and stalking and was jailed for two years and nine months by Judge David Evans.

He told him: 'You imposed on her through your physical actions, threats and mind games, restrictions which she felt every day of her life. You decided who she could see,  where she could go and what she could wear.

'You were constantly harassing her with accusations of infidelity and you used scare tactics to ensure she did not leave the relationship. You threatened repeatedly to kill her or harm her family if she did not behave exactly as you wanted her to.

'You held a heated iron and threatened to iron her face so as to alter her looks and she was extremely scared. You threatened to disfigure her by throwing acid over her face and had acid which police found.

'She must have been utterly terrified. She felt powerless and too scared to tell anyone outside her family. You sent her the most appalling message about her dead baby and a photograph that would have taken time to set up.'

The judge imposed a restraining order banning any further contact with the victim.

Miss Mary McCarthy, prosecuting, said the relationship lasted two years but that White continued stalking his ex-partner after she returned to live with her mother in Torquay. 

Police became involved after an attack in October last year in which White bit her jaw and strangled her hard enough to leave marks on the skin.

She wrote an impact statement which said: 'I don’t feel as if I will ever trust a man again.'

Mr Martin Salloway, defending, said White now realises that his behaviour was wrong, has shown remorse, and is keen to work to change his attitudes and actions.

He plans to return to the South East when he is released.