A MAN who repeatedly lashed out at his sister with a knife and his fists has been jailed for more than three years.

Kuldip Kurman, who has previous convictions for assaults on his ex-wife and sister-in-law, had downed up to 10 pints of lager and taken cocaine when he viciously attacked Parmajit Kaur in her own home on April 9 last year.

Maidstone Crown Court heard Miss Kaur was stabbed, punched and kicked until she was unconscious. At one stage she either fell or was thrown down the stairs.

In a victim impact statement made to the police Miss Kaur said: "It has had a devastating psychological and physical effect. At the time I doubted that I would survive."

Sentencing Kurman to a jail term of three years and three months and a susbsequent supervision period of one year and nine months Judge Jeremy Carey said the 40-year-old carpenter should be "ashamed for the rest of his life".

"Fuelled by drink and cocaine you set about her in a most vicious way," the judge added.

Kurman, of Shakespeare Road, Gillingham, admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm to Miss Kaur at an earlier hearing. He also pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm to a friend of Miss Kaur's, Ravinder Parmar, on the same occasion.

Kurman was also sentenced to 14 months imprisonment concurrent for the assault on Mr Parmar.