A controlling boyfriend hijacked his pregnant girlfriend's Facebook and banned her from seeing her parents for more than 10 minutes at a time.

Leonardo Walmesley, 21, of Ramsgate, changed his partner's profile password and would sit on a bench outside her family’s home, becoming enraged if she overshot his deadlines.

The carpenter would even physically attack the girl - then aged 17 - control her money and demand her phone calls were taken on loudspeaker.

He would also accompany her to see a friend, order she left college early and ban her from leaving his flat in Old School Lane.

She only stayed with him as every time she said she wanted to leave Walmesley would threaten to kill himself, so the toxic cycle would repeat itself.

But the "petulant" abuser is now behind bars after admitting controlling and coercive behaviour in a relationship.

He was sentenced to two years at Canterbury Crown Court, where the horrifying scale of the domestic abuse was revealed.

Prosecutor Paul Valder said: "There were several occasions when he would try to stop her leaving the house. He would drag her into the bedroom, hold her by the throat, punch her in the head.

“She said it never amounted to being strangled and the assaults never left bruises.

“Whenever she cried he would hurt her more."

The barrister described the desperate lengths Walmesley would go to snoop on her online activity.

“It seems he demanded that he have her login details for any social media," Mr Valder explained. "He would regularly check the account and change the email address linked to those accounts to his own so she couldn’t change passwords.

“He would regularly check through her phone to see what calls she had made.”

With the domestic violence intensifying around Christmas the girl would find herself locked in a kind of physical tug-of-war.

"He would drag her into the bedroom, hold her by the throat, punch her in the head..."

And when police became involved Walmesley manipulated her to lie in a bid to avoid jail.

“Her parents realised something wasn’t right, called around, she went to leave, he grabbed her, there was a tug-of-war, they managed to push him off her," he said.

“A later date she’s back at the flat and received a phone call from the police. He made her put the phone on speaker and told her to tell police there wasn’t a problem."

Raging Walmesley then repeatedly punched her head as she felt contractions - but she bit his thumb and managed to escape.

Following his arrest, Walmesley, who was on prison licence for a separate assault, denied the crimes.

But he pleaded guilty earlier this year at the same court.

Mitigating, John Barker said: “My client is very remorseful and that is why he pleaded guilty at a previous hearing.

“He hasn’t called for a trial - he is very concerned for his partner.

“There was an outside threat to the relationship, if you can call it that.

"He didn’t have the character, and probably still doesn’t have the character, to deal with this situation and behaved in a way that was petulant and childlike in many ways.”

Walmesley nodded and mouthed the words “thank you” as Recorder Rosina Cottage QC passed sentence.

“These offences are so serious that only a custodial sentence is justified and the least sentence I can pass is two years,” she said.

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