A former soldier who tortured a woman with heated hair straighteners as part of a sustained and degrading attack has been jailed for two and a half years.

Lee Goodwill, who saw active service in Afghanistan, kicked and stamped on Kimberley Wright, spat in her face and throttled her with a twisted bed sheet, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Goodwill, 31, clamped Miss Wright’s toe with hair straighteners set to maximum temperature after telling her: “I am going to torture you all night.”

Traumatised Miss Wright fled sobbing into the street after the assault, believing she had escaped being killed.

Goodwill, of Thompson Avenue, Swain House, Bradford, pleaded guilty to causing her actual bodily harm on May 20.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge James Stewart QC, told him: “Cases of this sort of level of violence to women are completely incomprehensible to everyone, except, presumably, to you.”

The judge, who was told Miss Wright hoped to be reconciled with Goodwill, added: “It is a matter of amazement that she wants you back.”

Prosecutor Philip Adams told the court yesterday Goodwill attacked Miss Wright after they fell out when she challenged him about a text message to his former wife. He kicked, punched and stamped on her in the bedroom at her home as she cried and pleaded with him to stop.

Goodwill threatened her with pieces of metal carpet strip and threw her on the bed. He heated her hair straighteners and clamped them on her big toe. After she screamed and pulled her leg away, Goodwill spat in her face and twisted the bed sheet in his hands.

“She believed at that moment that she was going to be killed,” Mr Adams said.

Goodwill wrapped the sheet around Miss Wright’s neck and applied pressure until she gasped for breath.

When he went to the bathroom, she fled the house and a neighbour found her injured on the pavement.

She suffered serious bruising and swelling to her head and face, reddening to her neck, bruising to her arms, shoulders and legs and a blistered toe.

Mr Adams said it was a sustained assault with “gratuitous degradation to the victim”.

Goodwill’s barrister, Abigail Langford, said he had a successful four-year Army career, serving in Afghanistan.

He suffered from depression and bouts of mental illness and had no recollection of the assault. He was remorseful and knew he was going to prison.