A MAN who took his girlfriend away for a spa weekend left her unconscious in an Old Town car park after throttling her in a drunken attack.

Michael Orchard, who was on early release from prison for other violence including another strangling, turned on the woman on a night out.

The burly 26-year-old grabbed his slight, 5ft 2ins, victim during the terrifying attack and squeezed her neck until she passed out, Swindon Crown Court heard.

And despite a judge jailing him for ten months for the assault a court heard it would make no difference as he has been recalled to prison until November next year.

Simon Goodman, prosecuting, said the couple, who had been together for three months, went to The Village Hotel, Shaw Ridge, on the last weekend in August.

They had been drinking cocktails before they went out and when he told her to leave her purse behind it led her to think he was going to treat her to a night out.

They went to Wood Street where they first went to a pub before moving on to a club.

"At that point the defendant met two men who he had met in prison. She describes them as looking like they were off their heads on something other than alcohol," he said.

“She felt she was tagging along with the boys on a boys' night out."

When she returned from the toilet, where she got chatting to a woman, Orchard shouted in her face for taking so long.

He then 'ordered her' to mind his and his mates' drinks while he disappeared for a while.

They then went out into the car park in Godwin Court as Orchard and his mates wanted to carry on drinking and she wanted to go home.

When she went to walk off saying she wanted to go back to the hotel Orchard followed, shouting and threatening her.

She managed to sneak away and hid behind a small wall but he found her and grabbed her saying ‘I love you’.

Orchard then started to strangle her, which she thought was to stop her from screaming, but she feared she was going to die .

“She thinks he could see she couldn’t breath. He didn’t seem to care. There was nothing she could do to stop him,” he said.

“She said ‘I was just so scared: then it went blank. The next thing I knew was being woken by two females’.”

When police arrived at the hotel, where Orchard had returned and smashed a mirror, he said ‘I have just had a little argument with my missus and you’ve f***ing arrested me’.

Orchard, of Quedgeley, Gloucester, pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm and criminal damage.

The court heard that he was jailed for four years in 2014 for a string of offences including one where the grabbed a taxi driver round the neck.

Rob Ross, defending, said his early release licence had been revoked and he was not now due to be free until November 2017.

Recorder Adrian Palmer QC said: “This, in my judgement, was a gratuitous attack on your young defenceless partner.

“She vividly described what happened to her as an attempt to strangle her with arms around her neck. Sadly this is a typical example of domestic violence, but a serious example of it.”