A man is to be sentenced today for breaking down his ex-girlfriend’s door with a hatchet and repeatedly raping her over five hours.

The man (53) pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the attack at her home in August of last year.

The woman (45) woke to the sound of smashing glass as her former partner used a hatchet to break down the back door of her home.

She’d ended their six month relationship because she found him to be too possessive - now, weeks later, drunk and armed with a knife he confronted her with the words ‘you wouldn’t speak to me so I have come to speak to you’.

He raped her repeatedly, cut her hair and assaulted her, telling her that he had nothing to lose and might as well kill them both by driving into the sea.

Lawyers for the separated father of four say he deeply regrets his actions against a woman he was very much in love with.

He’ll be sentenced today for a rape ordeal the DPP believes to be at the higher end of the scale.