A CRAZED knifeman who stabbed his teenage sweetheart when she began dating another man was jailed for five years.

Obsessed John Borlase, 23, stormed into the home of Clare Fielding and repeatedly slashed and stabbed her in the neck with a kitchen knife saying: "You deserve everything you get."

He then punched and stamped on 22 year-old Clare before leaving her lying in a pool of blood. The victim, who was the mother of Borlase's two and a half year-old daughter, Bethany, survived the attack but was left scarred for life by the brutal assault.

Yet after her boyfriend was arrested she wrote to him in prison forgiving him for the assault and saying: "I want to run away with you and make a fresh start."

The stabbing occurred in August last year, a month after Borlase had been arrested and bailed for threatening Clare in an earlier incident.

The couple had been 'on off' lovers since they were young teenagers at school but obsessed Borlase, of Cloudberry Walk, Partington, often sought to control Clare over who she was with and what she was wearing.

Miss Susan Klonin, prosecuting at Minshull Street Crown Court, said in the weeks leading up to the attack the defendant learnt Clare had begun an affair with a local man, Vinnie.

After a series of telephone confrontations and death threats, he went round to a house where Clare was now staying. Miss Klonin added: "She heard the front door crashing and saw the defendant coming towards her waving a bread knife.

"She was terrified and was trapped as he swiped down at her. She turned herself away from him and got it in the neck. He continued to slash at her right across her left eye but missed entirely."

Police were called and Borlase went on the run before giving himself up 10 days later. He subsequently told officers he dumped the knife in the Manchester Ship Canal. He added: "I had been drinking all day - I went for her in a fit of rage and just lost it and snapped."

He admitted wounding with intent after his not guilty plea to attempted murder was accepted by the prosecution. The court heard he had a previous conviction for GBH when he broke a man's jaw.

Passing sentence, Judge Jonathan Geake told Borlase: "There is always two sides to a relationship of this sort. It was on and off and peppered with difficulties.

"It was a frenzied, nasty and no doubt terrifying attack for Claire, although I accept she found it in her heart to write to you while you have been in prison and to a large extent has forgiven you for this terrible assault."

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