A JEALOUS ex-boyfriend repeatedly stabbed his pregnant former partner as their terrified four-year-old son screamed at him to stop, in a vicious attack at her Kidderminster home.

Andre Smith, 25, broke into Rachel Kane's home in Lea Street, Kidderminster, wielding a nine-inch blade and began attacking her so violently that the knife broke and she blacked out.

He then dragged her into the kitchen by her hair, punching her several times, and began stabbing her in the head and stomach using one of her own knives. When that also broke, he turned to a potato peeler to continue his brutal assault.

He was handed a 20-year extended prison sentence at Worcester Crown Court yesterday.

Judge Robert Juckes QC said Smith "plainly" posed a risk, not only to Miss Kane but to any other partner he struck up a relationship with in future.

"What happened must represent as frightening an experience that it is possible for a person to have," he said.

"You broke in through her front door... and you immediately set about her in the immediate presence of your own four-year-old son. The scene where she was found is a dreadful one because of the amount of blood shed."

Miss Kane, 25, gave birth to a healthy baby girl soon afterwards via caesarian section, the court heard, despite one of the stab wounds puncturing the amniotic sack and losing almost a litre of blood.

She is unlikely, however, to be able to have any more children due to the amount of internal damage caused by the attack and was also left with permanent scarring to her head and abdomen.

Prosecutor Paul Whitfield said that Smith, of Hamstead Road, Great Barr, and Miss Kane had been in a relationship for several years but that ended in 2009 after he was convicted of two assaults against her - including one where he threatened her with a knife.

The couple had no direct contact but he saw their son through an arrangement involving Smith's mother.

On the evening of July 28, he had been looking after their son when he disappeared from his home, turning up unexpectedly on Miss Kane's doorstep.

During the attack, Miss Kane said she was knocked unconscious a number of times but could remember their son screaming at his father to stop attacking his mother.

Mr Whitfield said Smith had found out she was seven months pregnant by another man and he became jealous, sparking his violent visit.

She was stabbed at least twice to the head and six times in the stomach, needing an urgent operation to repair the damage caused.

Abigail Nixon, defending, however, said Smith "simply doesn't know" why he went to Miss Kane's house that nigh, and could not explain the attack, except to say: "The red mist came down. He became angry because she wouldn't let him in."

The extended sentence includes a 15-year period of immediate custody, of which he will serve at least two-thirds, depending on whether a parole board decides he no longer poses a threat.

He will spend the rest of the 20-year period on licence. Smith previously denied a charge of attempted destruction of an unborn child, which will lie on file.