A MAN who is accused of holding a knife to the throat of his heavily pregnant partner during a siege at her house has been jailed for 16 months.

Despite two police officers saying they saw the blade being held by her neck Neil Rose's partner insists it was only ever at her side.

But a judge at Swindon Crown Court told the 40-year-old, who has a history of domestic violence, it didn't matter where he was holding it.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, said the couple had been playing cards at a neighbour's house in Tadpole Garden Village on Saturday, December 10, when he went home early.

Rose had been drinking and taking cocaine, he said, and when she got back he was sitting on her 12-year-old son's bed holding his passport.

The lad was asleep and the defendant, who had a knife on the floor by his feet, was ranting irrationally that the document was fake.

His shouting woke the child and as she went to get the boy out of the room Rose, who was shouting 'I'm scared', grabbed the lad before taking hold of his partner.

"He grabbed her, putting his arm around her neck and the knife to her right side," Mr Meeke said,

"He then began - if he wasn't already erratic, shouting and crying - shouting that he loved her and wouldn't hurt her."

The boy ran next door and the neighbours called the police, who arrived to see the couple in the upstairs front window with Rose holding the knife.

Mr Meeke said the first officer on the scene said he saw the knife being held to her throat as she begged him to let her go.

Rose told police who had entered the house, one carrying a shield, not to come upstairs and there was then a stand off.

Looking up the constable said he also saw the knife being held to the woman's throat as the defendant urged him not to Taser him.

He then picked up his passport and as he said 'I don't think it is my baby,' the pregnant woman managed to break free and he then put the knife down.

When he was questioned he said he was 'extremely paranoid' about who had been contacting her after taking two lines of cocaine.

Rose, who gave the court an address in Bicester, Oxfordshire, pleaded guilty to affray, assault and having a small amount of cannabis.

Mr Meeke said he was put on a conditional discharge in September last year for threatening a former partner after she found he was seeing another woman.

After she told him she wanted him out of her life he sent her texts and voice message threatening to kill her daughter.

Rob Ross, defending, said that his client accepted 'frightening the life out of her' with the knife but not putting it to her throat.

He said his client, who works as a plasterer, was remanded in custody after breaching his bail shortly after Christmas but she has been visiting him in prison.

She has three children, who she says are fond of him, and is expecting one by him in four weeks time and will stand by him, adding social services had not been involved.

Passing sentence Judge Robert Pawson pointed out that the probation report says he has 'a high risk of serious harm to the children of your partner'.

He said: "Whether you held it to her neck or torso matters not. The fact is for several minutes you held a knife and held it to her body. Considerable injury could have been caused.

"The incident is described as isolated but at the time this offence took place you were subject to a conditional discharge which you had been made subject to on September 15."