A terrified mum was forced to kiss her children goodbye after her abusive boyfriend told her: "I’m going to put you in a grave.”

Michelle Bielby was convinced she would be killed by menacing Jake Jones after he scrawled in crayon on the bathroom wall "mummy is dead tonight, rest in peace".

The jealous NHS worker, of Avon Close, Canterbury, then repeatedly strangled the mum-of-two in a drunken rage at her Herne Bay home.

Believing she was texting another man, the 31-year-old, who describes himself as a "hermit character", warned her: "If I can’t have you, nobody will."

But now the thug is behind bars after brave Miss Bielby found the strength to press ahead with a conviction in what would be the first step towards rebuilding the lives of her and and her young children.

After Jones was jailed for two-and-a-half years on Tuesday, she told KentOnline: "No sentence will ever be enough to erase the psychological trauma he put me and my babies through, but at least now we have closure and can continue to work towards moving on from it."

Miss Bielby was in the building for the sentencing at Canterbury Crown Court, where details of the horrific abuse she was subjected to were laid bare.

The court heard Jones, who cleaned operating theatres at unsociable hours, began drinking early after arriving at her home in April last year and “called her a slag".

After downing eight cans of beer, he “picked up her dinner plate and slammed it on the side, grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the microwave”, prosecutor James Harrison said.

He repeatedly placed his hands around her neck, smashed her perfume and drink glasses, cut up her debit card, and damaged her phone charger and jumper.

Jones then grabbed her by the throat, threw her on the bed, asked where her windpipe was located and said if “I can’t have you nobody will”, the court heard.

After Jones fell asleep on the sofa the police were alerted.

In a harrowing victim impact statement, Miss Bielby revealed: “I was forced to kiss my children goodbye because he was going to kill me.”

She described feeling a “shell of a person I did not recognise”, adding: “I lost who I was, I was an abused version of me.”

And she told how she felt gaslighted, “useless, stupid, disgusting, nobody else would ever want me”.

At times, Miss Bielby appeared visibly distraught while attending the hearing remotely from another room inside the court building.

Jones, dressed in a dark top, could be seen fidgeting and repeatedly touching his face in the dock as the prosecution’s case unfolded.

The hospital worker of 14 years was convicted following a trial in his absence in September last year.

“When the neck is targeted, it is the potential of fatal harm that makes the nature of the attacks so serious..."

Charles Hannaford, defending, said Jones launched the “unexplained and inexcusable” attack after believing Miss Bielby was texting another man.

He said Jones describes himself as “a hermit character” without friends, who has stopped drinking cold turkey after realising he has an alcohol problem.

Jailing Jones for 30 months, Judge Simon James described the attack as “prolonged” and said he left Miss Bielby “genuinely believing you intended to kill her in her own home”.

“When the neck is targeted, it is the potential of fatal harm that makes the nature of the attacks so serious,” he added.

Jones was convicted at the lower court in September of making threats to kill, actual bodily harm and criminal damage.

Speaking after the sentencing, Miss Bielby said that with Jones behind bars she can start to live her life again.

"Whether he did 15 months inside or five, that's time me and the children can do things we haven't been able to do in fear of coming into contact with him," she said.

Call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247 for free at any time, for confidential, non-judgemental information and support.