A DRUNK and jealous thug punched his partner and waved a knife around in front of her terrified child.

Daniel Heath accused his partner of cheating on him, and flew into a drunken rage when he stumbled into her Basildon home after drinking heavily.

The 34-year-old of Lottem Road, Canvey, banged on the door of his partner’s home before being let in at 1am on February 5 this year, three hours after she went to bed.

He falsely accused her of having another man in her home, and the shouting woke up her 11-year-old son, who went into the bedroom to comfort her.

Heath then punched the woman and left her with a black eye, before going downstairs and getting a kitchen knife, shouting ‘when I find him, I will kill you both’ before falling asleep in an armchair.

Over the course of the next week Heath would watch his partner and her son, turning up one evening and calling her son “scum”.

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The court heard of an incident when his partner moved her car off the drive so it looked like she wasn’t in. Heath called her asking where she had gone, and when she claimed she was at her mother’s house, he told her he had been there and not seen her car.

On another occasion he came around, took a hammer from the shed and hit it against kitchen work surfaces, and smashed a photo frame as he left the house, when his partner called the police.

Heath was arrested and later went on to admit controlling and coercive behaviour, assault and criminal damage.

He appeared at Basildon Crown Court yesterday for sentencing. Mitigation said that Heath was “disgusted” by his actions and had sought help to curb his alcoholism.

Judge Samantha Cohen told Heath he had put his partner and her son through a “terrifying” ordeal and gave him a 16 month suspended sentence, 150 hours unpaid work and £340 in costs.