A 'woman beater' who put his former partner through three hours of violence has been jailed.

Morgan Charles Ralph, aged 34, could be heard punching his former partner even as she made a 999 call to police and pleaded to be rescued.

She climbed out of a window as police officers arrived.

Ralph, of Hill Street, Haverfordwest, but previously of Neyland, admitted assault causing actual bodily harm and was jailed for two years and three months.

Sian Cutter, prosecuting, told Swansea crown court that Ralph had been sentenced to a community order for assaulting the same victim only weeks before the more violent attack.

She said the couple had split up 10 weeks earlier.

But Ralph turned up at her home on May 11 and persuaded her to let him in.

The following morning he assaulted her for three hours, punching, kicking and biting her.

"He punched her like a boxer would and she estimated he hit her at least fifty times," said Miss Cutter.

"She tried numerous times to escape but he stopped her."

The court heard that Ralph had 102 previous convictions, some of them for assaulting female partners.

Judge Paul Thomas told Ralph he should have been charged with false imprisonment.

"You put that woman through a prolonged, brutal, savage beating.

"You had only just been sentenced for punching and biting her on a previous occasion.

"No doubt you persuaded her that you had changed because that is what men like you do.

"You kept on hitting her even as she rang 999.

"It is a complete mystery as to why you were not charged with false imprisonment."

Judge Thomas told Ralph he had used the victim as a punch bag.

"You are a woman beater, or to put it another way a complete coward."

Judge Thomas issued a restraining order preventing Ralph from contacting his former partner.