Wigan brute ‘tried to strangle’ ex-partner after driving to her Chorley home, Preston Crown Court told

A raging ex-boyfriend smashed his way into a woman's flat and assaulted her, leaving her in fear for her life.

Ben Cotton, from Wigan, drove 25 miles to the woman's property in Chorley in the middle of the night and confronted her.

He then tried to strangle the mum-of-one during a terrifying ordeal in which she was left completely at his mercy.

At Preston Crown Court on Friday (June 30), Cotton, 41, of St Elizabeths Road, Aspull, was sentenced to a total of 32 months after pleading guilty to malicious communication, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and damage to property.

A restraining order of 10 years was also imposed to prevent him contacting the victim, Nina Matthews.

Charges of non-fatal strangulation, threats to kill and false imprisonment were ordered to lie on file.

In her victim impact statement which she read out in court, Nina, 30, said she was awoken early in the morning of February 16 by three loud bangs against her front door.

She ran out of her bedroom only to be confronted by Cotton standing in the dark hallway with a "face like thunder."

Nina said: "He was shouting abuse and stating how I had treated him like a mug. I was in shock but still didn’t think that he had come to hurt me.

"I asked him to leave. This is when he came and grabbed me by my arms, lifting and dragging me from the front door, and then threw me onto the sofa. I screamed, It hurt and it terrified me. He had been physical. He had breached that line, now all of a sudden I had found myself trapped inside my home with a monster, in an evil game of cat and mouse."

Nina then described how Cotton began ranting and raving, and punched holes in the wall above her head.

In her desperate effort to escape, Nina said he tried to strangle her, adding: "I remember my scream being squeezed short and trying to prise his hands from around my neck with my fingers, while his snarling face was inches away from mine.

"I lost consciousness, and woke on the floor within my hallway. Ben was still stood over me. The force with which he strangled me made me fall whilst losing consciousness."

Even when Nina managed to escape from his clutches and ran down the street, Cotton continued to pursue her, frantically ringing trying to get help before neighbours finally came to her rescue.

She said: "I slumped down at the final door I had managed to bang on as he caught me and starting throwing me and banging the back of my head of the door. Then two neighbours finally came out and he walked away. I had finally escaped him. It felt like a lifetime.

"Ben Cotton made the decision to come out to my home and overpower a 5 ft 6 innocent woman. I am a mother, daughter, sister, aunty and friend. None of that mattered to Ben.

"I never thought someone I cared about and trusted would ever harm me.