A THUG with a history of offences against women strangled and punched a nurse as he drove over the M4 Prince of Wales Bridge.

Ricky-Lee Bartlett, 36, started the “prolonged and persistent” assault on the motorway at Magor, Newport Crown Court was told.

The defendant and victim had met on Facebook and he came to stay with her for just over a week at the beginning of 2021.

He attacked her while they were driving to Birmingham in the February of that year.

Prosecutor Daniel Oscroft said: “The offending came about because of him becoming angry and frustrated that she was using her phone and not paying him attention.”

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Wheelchair user Bartlett grabbed her phone and threw it in the back of her car before he began beating her up.

The defendant was found guilty of assaulting occasioning actual bodily harm following a trial at Newport Magistrates’ Court.

In a victim personal statement, the woman said: “I was suffering with flashbacks that would wake me up from my sleep.

“I would think of Ricky strangling me again and I couldn't breathe.

“This was happening nightly and the fear of this happening was making me unable to sleep.

“I was living in fear – I was terrified that Ricky would come to my address and harm me.”

Mr Oscroft said Bartlett was jailed for wounding in 2014 and locked up again four years later after being convicted of burglary and threatening to disclose private sexual photographs.

He added of the defendant being in a wheelchair: “As I understand it, it is because he injured himself whilst trying to escape from the police.”

Bartlett’s barrister Jennifer Morris said: “I would ask your honour to consider the age of the offence.

“He has matured since and he’s not necessarily the same person.”

Judge Eugene Egan told the defendant: “You grabbed your victim hair whilst you were driving and you pulled her hair causing some of it to fall out.

You changed your grip and put your hand around her throat and squeezed it so that she couldn't breathe properly.

“You squeezed her neck for about 30 seconds and you were screaming at her to sit down and you were telling her that she couldn't have her telephone.”

Bartlett, of Heath Gap Road, Cannock, Staffordshire was jailed for 22 month but the sentence was suspended for two years.

The defendant was ordered to complete a 30-day rehabilitation activity requirement and pay £1,056 in costs, compensation and a surcharge.

He was made the subject of a three-year restraining order not to contact his victim.