A business boss broke his girlfriend's leg during a "gratuitous and sickening" attack at a five-star holiday park.

Father-of three Dean Fowler punched his victim to the ground and jumped on her leg - breaking both bones - before hurling abuse at her as she lay in agony.

She was kept in hospital for a week after the drunken assault, which was described by Judge Simon James as a “vicious, sustained and cowardly attack”.

He added that the verbal abuse was a "callous effort to gratuitously humiliate someone who was already severely injured”.

Fowler's victim told police she feared she was going to die during the ordeal at the luxury Foxhunter Park in Monkton in September last year.

She sat in the public gallery at Canterbury Crown Court and watched as Fowler was jailed for three years after admitting unlawfully causing her grievous bodily harm.

The 43-year-old, of Mottingham, south-east London, had initially denied deliberately causing her serious harm but part way through his trial offered a guilty plea to the lesser charge.

Prosecutor Daniel Stevenson told how his victim underwent surgery on her leg after the attack and was kept in hospital for a week.

She had to use crutches when walking for six months and is still in pain now, he added.

The judge said the beating was more serious because it was on a partner and was “a violation of the trust and security that should exist between people in a relationship”.

He told Fowler that despite his change of plea he had shown no evidence of true remorse for the “gratuitous and sickening” attack and had kept up “ a charade” that the injury had been caused by the victim herself.

He was given a restraining order banning him from contact with his victim for five years.