An Ipswich man who hit his former partner in the face with a glass causing a cut to her lip which needed seven stitches has been jailed for 16 months.

Danzel Hurd smashed the glass in beauty therapist Debbie Wright's face after she poured water over his leg during an argument, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Immediately after the incident Miss Wright saw a friend who witnessed the incident looking scared and then felt blood "gushing" from her mouth, said Richard Potts, prosecuting.

Following the incident Hurd called for an ambulance and had been apologetic, the court heard.

Miss Wright suffered a cut to her lip which needed seven stitches.

In a statement read to the court she described the effect Hurd's behaviour had had on her life.

She said she and her children had been forced to move away from family and friends and her Ipswich home into a refuge.

After 11 years building up clients as a beauty therapist she now didn't have a job.

"We are doing well now. It's taken 14 months to get to this stage. It's been the hardest 14 months of my life," she said.

Hurd, 35, of Worsdell Close, Ipswich, admitted wounding Miss Wright and an offence of battery.

In addition to being jailed he was made the subject of a restraining order banning him from contacting her for ten years.

Mr Potts told the court that the couple had been in an on-off relationship for ten years and by August last year they had been separated for five months.

On August 12 Hurd had woken Miss Wright at her home in Jamestown Boulevard, Ipswich, by shaking her and shouting at her and had then pinned her against a wall and shoved her mobile phone in her mouth and slapped her.

The incident in which Miss Wright suffered the cut to her lip happened the next day while she was at a friend's house.

Mr Potts said Hurd had admitted the offence on the basis Miss Wright had tipped beer over his head and he had unintentionally caused the injury to her mouth with a wine glass he'd been holding

Lynne Shirley for Hurd said her client needed help to stop him offending.

"He is extremely sorry and remorseful for his actions," she said.