A young girl nursed her mum's horrific injuries after watching her being beaten and bitten by her dad, a court heard.

The four-year-old was overheard by neighbours crying hysterically and pleading with one-armed Nelson Scamp to stop his onslaught on mother-of-three Angie Pooley.

Miss Pooley, 31, had only given birth six weeks earlier.

Violence erupted at the family home in Castle Street, Swanscombe, on New Year's Day when she felt too ill to feed the baby.

Scamp, 32, subjected his girlfriend of 16 years to what was described at Maidstone Crown Court as a "cowardly and sustained attack" and was jailed for five-and-a-half years.

Miss Pooley's injuries included fractures to an eye socket and a rib, as well as a collapsed lung.

She spent two weeks in hospital recovering and still suffers from a loss of memory, taste and smell.

The court heard she awoke from the attack and thought she was blind as she could not open her eyes.

Her frightened daughter had tended to her with tissues and medicine, and even tried to put a plaster on her mother's ear after Scamp bit it.

Prosecutor Ian Hope added that the little girl had also fetched a sick bowl and "scooped" blood and at least one tooth out of her mother's mouth.

Scamp, whose left arm is missing below the elbow, admitted causing grievous bodily harm.

Judge David Griffith-Jones QC said he had no doubt that Scamp was a bully and that it was fortuitous Miss Pooley's physical injuries were not more serious given the "ferocity" of the attack.

Scamp initially denied attacking his girlfriend and Miss Pooley herself claimed she had been beaten up by strangers on her way home from local shops.

The couple's four-year-old daughter, however, gave police a detailed account of the attack.