A serial woman beater has avoided prison despite battering his pregnant girlfriend in a savage attack.
Andrew Monks, 37, repeatedly stamped on her face and kicked her in genitals, Liverpool Crown Court was told.
He was spared jail after the judge heard the former soldier had undergone therapy.
The Liverpool Echo report that he threatened to scoop the victim's eyeballs out after punching her back in February.
Monks was discharged from the Army in 2007 and has 16 past convictions for 33 offences.
Those including domestic violence charges in 2007, 2013 and 2017.
He walked from free after explaining he was doing "equine therapy" in order to "regain his honour".
Judge Garrett Byrne handed the thug 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, for assault causing actual bodily harm, theft and damaging property.
Monks had been drinking and claiming he was sleeping with his ex-partner, the court heard.
The woman said: "I was terrified for myself and my unborn baby. I feel completely disgusted, embarrassed and full of shame that I even had contact with him.
"He's behaved like an animal."
The man then told her: "I hope that thing growing inside you isn't anything to do with me."
The victim struggled and managed to fight him off during the attack at a hotel, but was so scared that she wet herself.
She told the court: "I still love Andrew, but he can't love me to hurt me how he has."
Judge Byrne was also told how he had undertaken a "much more challenging course", led by military veteran addiction centre Tom Harrison House in Anfield, which involved caring for rescued horses.
But Judge David Aubrey, QC, said he had all the information he required in the report prepared ahead of Monks sentencing in July.
He jailed Monks for three years in total, including his 18-month suspended sentence, which the judge activated in full.
