A DRUNKEN man, who held a knife to the throat of a woman after forcing his way into her flat in the middle of the night, was locked up for a minimum two years for public protection.

Piotr Lipka, 36, had been liberally knocking back whisky when he smashed his way into the home of Wieslawa Rucinska who was asleep in bed with her husband, Krzysztof.

Lipka had rowed with the couple, who lived in the same multi-occupancy house, a couple of days earlier about money.

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Brandishing the knife, he leant over the bed and her husband to hold the blade at her throat.

“She says she was absolutely terrified,”

said prosecutor Richard Willcox. “In fact, in her statement to the police, she says she was stiff with horror.”

Her husband however remained remarkably calm, telling the intruder they were going to sleep and had to go to work the same day.

After Lipka left the room, the couple jumped out of bed and went to lock the door but he had remained outside their flat and during a struggle, Mr Rucinska suffered an arm injury.

Southampton Crown Court heard the drama happened only weeks after Lipka had breached a non-molestation order taken out by his former partner which banned him from going to a city school at opening and closing hours.

However, he entered the premises one afternoon, frightening a young child and making a teacher feel threatened.

Judge Derwin Hope was told that incident happened only a month after he had been released from a nine-month term for threatening his ex-partner with an inter-locking sword.

Lipka, of Denzil Avenue, Southampton, admitted breaching the order and making a threat to kill. The judge declared he posed a significant risk of causing harm to women and gave him a two year minimum sentence.

Alistair Wright, defending, said Lipka was confused about the terms of the order and did not remember the knife incident.