A dangerous abuser threatened his partner in a sickening game of cat and mouse - where the flip of a coin determined whether she would be stabbed.

Remorseless Elryck Meek, of Ashford, also repeatedly choked and threatened her with blades in a cruel campaign of dominance.

The 42-year-old launched an obscene gesture moments after he was locked up at Canterbury Crown Court last Thursday (February 2).

A judge told the painter and decorator he was a “very dangerous man” and “no woman would be safe entering a relationship with you.”

The stinging remarks came after Meek’s survivor described how she believed “I was going to die and lose everything,” during their relationship from June - December, 2021.

Meek denied a slew of domestic abuse charges but was unanimously convicted last year following a trial at the same court.

He returned last week to be sentenced.

Prosecutor Adam Smith told how Meek repeatedly put his hands around her throat, punched, slapped, and ripped out her hair.

Tearing off her clothes, he threatened to lock her outside in a state of undress during a terrifying act of humiliation.

With a “pervasive air of control” Meek would brandish knives to her face and chest, hold her neck, and jack back his arm “as if to punch her,” Mr Smith continued.

Cutting off her friends, Meek controlled her phone and, in a mortifying display of dominance, “said he would flip a coin to see if he would cut her.”

He reportedly told the petrified woman: “Heads I cut you up, tails you can go."

“I’m a shadow of my normal self. Why me? Why did he do this to me...?”

Finding Meek dangerous in the eyes of the law, Judge Catherine Brown said he was “someone who simply does not think the law or rules of what is necessary in a civilised society apply to you.”

“(You have) no respect or empathy for anyone but yourself,” she said, adding: “I am quite sure you are a very dangerous man.”

Handing down an extended sentence, Judge Brown explained she was convinced “no woman would be safe entering a relationship with you”.

Meek’s victim attended court to see him jailed for four and a half years, with a further year on licence.

He will then be subjected to an indefinite restraining order.

She said in a victim impact statement the suffering she endured at Meek’s hands caused her “hair to fall out in clumps".

“I’m a shadow of my normal self,” she said, explaining how Meek’s “constant gaslighting” destroyed the “bubbly and happy” person she once was.

“Why me? Why did he do this to me?” she went on.

Meek was arrested in Ashford in December 2021 and denied all allegations levelled against him.

But a jury convicted him of controlling and coercion within a relationship, occasioning actual bodily harm and four counts of assault by beating last year.

Meek, who has 10 convictions for 15 offences, was also convicted in a separate trial of breaching a non-molestation order.

Jurors heard how Meek, whose previous convictions consist of grievous bodily harm with intent and harassment, phoned a different ex-partner 41 times in a day.

It placed him in breach of a previous court ruling.

Representing Meek, Shenaiya Kharegat said he had been out of trouble for six years prior to his recent offending and has been held on remand since his arrest.

She added he also suffers with a form of social anxiety disorder.

Appearing remotely from HMP Lewes, Meek sat reclined in a white room, with his arms folded, and refused to engage in the proceedings.

Towards the end, he made an obscene hand gesture towards the courtroom prompting the judge to cut the link.

Meek, of Tufton Street, was handed a four year extended sentence for the physical violence offences - he will have to serve two thirds before being considered for parole.

He was also given six months custody to run consecutively for breaching the non-molestation order.