A woman was forced to strip and shower after a bully boyfriend attacked her with a knife.

Thug Barry Joseph then washed his victim’s clothes in an effort to get rid of the evidence, Canterbury Crown Court heard.

But when police arrived at her Folkestone home after 4am, they discovered blood over the kitchen floor, the walls, the banister and the shower head in the bath.

Joseph was arrested shortly after but denied the attack, claiming his ex-lover had “slipped in new shoes”.

Now 57-year-old Joseph has been ordered to pay his victim £2500 in compensation – after avoiding an immediate jail sentence for the attack.

Prosecutor Elise Jeremiah told how the couple had been in a five year relationship when the victim returned home at 8pm on January 29 this year.

"The verbal altercation very quickly became physical and he grabbed his victim by the hair and punched her to the face and body" Prosecutor Elise Jeremiah

“She found Joseph sitting at the table drinking a glass of wine and he immediately demanded to see her mobile phone.

“The verbal altercation very quickly became physical and he grabbed his victim by the hair and punched her to the face and body.

“He then pulled her to the ground and kicked her before going to the kitchen and getting a knife with a four-inch blade from a drawer," she said.

Ms Jeremiah added that Joseph then brandished the weapon before demanding she take a shower while he took her clothes and washed them.

The victim suffered cuts to her mouth, bruising all over her head, chest, neck, arms, legs and back as well as a black eye.

She later told police said that after the attack she wasn’t able to work or drive her car for up to six weeks. She said the physical pain lasted for weeks and she wasn’t able to live at her home due to fear.

“This will stay with me for a very long time," she wrote in her Victim Impact Statement.

Joseph, from Grasmere Gardens, Orpington, was given a 14 month jail sentence suspended for two years after admitting the assault and ordered to pay £1000.

Judge William Kennedy told the railway worker what he had subjected his victim to was “nothing short of disgraceful”.