Man cut woman with knife and threatened to rape and kill her

A MAN repeatedly held a kitchen knife to a woman's throat while threatening to kill and rape her, a court has heard.

- JASON EVANS

Mark Webber told his victim he had been paid to end her life and would be paid extra to carry out a sexual assault.

Swansea Crown Court heard the defendant then made the woman sleep in the same bed as him - while he kept a knife under the pillow.

A judge said Webber had "brutally and sadistically" attacked the woman over a prolonged period, and said on the evidence of the night in question alone the defendant should be considered a dangerous offender - though he said he was not able to pass an extended sentence.

Emily Bennett, prosecuting, told the court that Webber and the complainant had only been in a relationship for a matter of weeks when the incident happened in May this year as the couple sat in the living room of the woman's flat.

The court heard an argument started because the complainant wouldn't go to the shops to buy alcohol for the defendant - during the row 45-year-old Webber struck the woman to the face, causing her nose to bleed. The defendant apologised and "helped her to clean up the blood".

The prosecutor said Webber then left the property, only to return a short time later with a bottle of whisky and a case of lager - the woman told him to go away but he again hit her to the face and then sat on the sofa and started drinking the whisky.

The court heard the woman sat beside the defendant and they both consumed the recently purchased alcohol until the partner made a comment which the defendant "took in the wrong way" and attacked her.