A WOMAN slashed her partner with a samurai sword so deeply she exposed his spine.

Anika Victoria Medley, 35, had bought the weapon for the man with whom she had been in a relationship for some months, said Andrew Semple, prosecuting at York Crown Court.

After they had together drunk 10 cans of Stella Artois and three of Jack Daniels with Coke, they argued and he grabbed her in a headlock.

They each calmed down, but after a brief interlude he got angry again and put the samurai sword to her throat, the court heard.

“She wasn’t bothered because this sort of conduct had been normal in the relationship. He used to do it while he was drunk,” Mr Semple told York Crown Court.

She pushed her partner away, grabbed the sword to frighten him and recklessly swung it at his back as he sat on a sofa rolling a cigarette. The sword slashed him so deeply it exposed his vertebrae.

Judge Andrew Stubbs QC told Medley: “This was a brutal weapon swung in anger. The injury you caused was a vicious and very unpleasant injury.”

Medley, formerly of Church Street, Kirkbymoorside, Ryedale, pleaded guilty to wounding on the day she was due to stand trial and was given a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years on condition she does 60 days’ rehabilitative activities.

Defence barrister Alex Menary said she had suffered from violence at her partner’s hands in the past.

She had not intended to hurt him and had been emotionally unstable at the time and was remorseful for her actions.

A probation officer reported that the two partners continued to see each other, and the judge said this was concerning.

But Mr Menary said she accepted the relationship was over.

Mr Semple said Medley had phoned 999 and when the police arrived, the man had objected to her being arrested.

He had not given a statement, and had stopped police from asking the doctors who treated him about his injury.