A HUSBAND who battered his wife in front of their children after she caught him texting another woman was freed when a judge ruled a "focus on his feelings" would help protect the victim from further attacks.

Anthony Robson, 41, left spouse Kathryn, 39, with a swollen cut nose and bruises all over her body after he broke down their front door and headbutted her in their 11-year-old daughter's bedroom in Glossop, Derbyshire.

In the run up to the assault, Kathryn had caught her husband of 14 years sending messages to another woman at their home and threw a Pot Noodle over him in a van on their drive.

The father-of-three also punched the door of the marital bedroom, smashed a fan against the wall and grabbed his wife by the throat before their 17-year-old son intervened.

The couple were already estranged after Robson had started a new relationship but he had returned to the family home after a night out.

At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester plasterer Robson admitted assault by beating and occasioning actual bodily harm but was given a six month jail term suspended for two years after he agreed to attend a counselling programme designed to help offenders "build better relationships".

He was also banned from contacting his wife under the terms of an indefinite restraining order.

Sentencing Judge Bernard Lever told Robson: "I don't know how long relations have been deteriorating between you and your wife, what I do know is that you're a big man and she is a petite lady, in any event you had absolutely no business using excessive force on her.

"Your wife is not a female wrestler.

"But because there have been no other domestic call-outs, I am willing to suspend the sentence.

"But I want to make serious it is not acceptable for your 11-year-old child to have to watch her father beat her mother in her own bedroom, she will have this tape playing over in her head.

"I want you to focus on your feelings because that's the best way to protect your wife and children."

In a victim personal statement Mrs Robson said: "I am not eating as I'm too upset and hurt.

"I'm having panic attacks and not sleeping.

"I am very nervous and jumpy and if I see an argument this makes me feel uncomfortable."

"I cannot concentrate on any of the hobbies I used to do, I don't want to go out because I'm nervous about what might happen.

"I have nightmares because all I can hear is my daughter screaming."

She also branded her husband a "home wrecker and a wife beater" and in Facebook posts ahead of her husband's court hearing added: "I'm alive and traumatised - need prayers to survive the day."