A HOLIDAYMAKER stabbed his girlfriend with a steak knife inside their tent after drinking a five litre barrel of extra-strong beer.

Tyso Baker, from Minehead, tried to throttle Chanelle Vallaincourt before plunging the knife into her back and puncturing a lung. He told her ‘You’ll be all right, babe, it’s only a scratch’.

He had been drinking 5.2 per cent Hobgoblin ale for 14 hours and woke his partner up at 1.30 am to accuse her of fancying his brother. He attacked her when she told him to grow up.

The couple had been in a relationship for four months and gone for a weekend camping trip to the Axmouth Camp site at Seaton, Devon, last July.

He brought a five litre keg of Hobgoblin with him and started drinking at around 10 am of their first full day at the site.

She was asleep in the tent when he attacked her. It was totally dark apart from a faint glow from tea-lights which they had placed around the tent.

Baker, 33, of Puffin Close, Minehead, admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and was jailed for four years, eight months by Judge Timothy Rose at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: "She feared her life was in danger that night. She was inside a small and constrained area with no obvious means of escape and it was in the middle of the night. There has been an ongoing psychological effect on her.”

Mr Richard Crabb, prosecuting, said Baker started drinking from a keg of Hobgoblin at 11 am on the morning before the attack and carried on throughout the day.

The victim also had a drink during the evening and was asleep in the tent at 1.30 am when she was attacked. He sat next to her, woke her, and asked if she preferred his brother Troy to him.

Mr Crabb said: "She told him to grow up and said she didn’t even fancy his brother. He suddenly got on top of her and grabbed her around the throat and squeezed hard.

“She could not breathe and she thought he was going to kill her. She struggled and pushed him off but as she got her shoulders off the ground, she felt a sharp pain and blood running down her back.

“She stumbled to a neighbouring tent to get help. Baker was wandering around and came over to where she was. He put pressure on the wound and said ‘You’ll be all right, babe, it’s only a scratch’.”

In fact, she suffered a punctured lung and spent three days in hospital.

Miss Caighli Taylor, defending, said Baker was diagnosed with an emotionally unstable personality disorder after the attack and spent several months in mental hospitals.

She said he is truly remorseful for his behaviour which he struggles to understand.

The judge made an indefinite restraining order banning any future contact between Baker and the victim.