The former fiancée of a Huddersfield League cricketer has told how she feared for her life as he carried out a ‘vile and disgusting’ booze-fuelled attack on her.

Lauren Richmond, 22, suffered multiple cuts and bruises during the May Day attack by Jordan Greaves, which only ended when she managed to wind down the window and scream for help.

Greaves launched the sickening attack when Lauren tried to stop him getting behind the wheel after he had downed lager and Sambuca shots.

She was treated in hospital for a catalogue of injuries in the attack, including a cut to the forehead when she says Jordan banged her head against the car dashboard, bruising to her chest, neck and face and a cut and swollen lip.

Reliving the attack she said: “It was disgusting. It was vile. I couldn’t even recognise myself in the mirror, It didn’t look like me. Nothing was broken, but I genuinely thought he was going to kill me that night. That’s why I had to open the window and call for help.”

Greaves, 23, of Elm Street in Skelmanthorpe, pleaded guilty to charges of assault and drink-driving when he appeared before Kirklees magistrates this week. He was given a community order with 180 hours of unpaid work and a restraining order banning him from contacting Lauren for a year.

He must pay her £250 compensation and was banned from driving for 20 months.

Lauren said she spent months worrying that the case would go to a jury trial.

She added: “The most important thing for me was him admitting it after all this time. It meant closure for me.”

Lauren said she met Greaves in 2015 when he was holidaying in Wales and she was working as a lifeguard. She joined him in Huddersfield, but said she endured “control and emotional abuse from the start” leading up to the 2017 attack.

“He would try to tell me what to wear and he wouldn’t allow me to have any male friends,” she said.

“I used to work at Starbucks and he would sit outside watching me. If I had to serve men he went mental at me and when they had a male manager, I had to quit.

“I was treading on eggshells every day. I had to make sure I did wear this or that. I had to be careful looking at my phone if a man was messaging me.

“Even if I was wearing normal day-time make-up he would tell me to wipe it off because he thought I was making myself look good for men. I would do my foundation and mascara and a bit of eyeliner, but I love my make-up and it wasn’t how I wanted it to be. I didn’t feel good in it.”

Lauren said she and Greaves split up for about two months, but he came back and led her down the street where he had left several bunches of flowers.

“That was the first time he apologised for hitting me” she said. “He said he was getting professional help with his issues and I believed him.

“We got back together and on January 2 he proposed to me. The ‘control’ was still there but it wasn’t as bad. I thought he was trying to do something about it. We found a place together in Holmfirth and I moved there five days before this incident happened. He was just waiting for me to come back so he could have me to himself and start again.”

Lauren is now living in the Midlands and has started a new part-time job as a waitress. She also runs an online cosmetics and skincare business and plans to return to college after the summer.

“I still have nightmares to this day about what he has done,” she said. “If I go out on my own I still fear he is going to come up behind me. If I see a car that’s the same as his I panic. He has a restraining order but there is still that fear.”

She said people in abusive relationships should “just get out”. She said: “People will say they will change, but they won’t. People need to get out as quickly as possible. There are men who will treat you like a princess. Not every man is the same.”