A DRUG addict who stabbed his ex-girlfriend in the chest with a screwdriver has been jailed for eight years.

Ricky Crosher, 32, broke into his 17-year-old girlfriend's house in Billericay and stabbed her after she told him she had been unfaithful.

Before stabbing her he said: “If I can’t have you then I might as well finish the job off”.

Yesterday Crosher of New London Road, Chelmsford, appeared in Basildon Crown Court to be sentenced after admitting aggravated burglary with intent to commit grievous bodily harm at an earlier hearing.

Judge John Lodge told him he would spend eight years behind bars and then serve a further five years on licence.

The court heard Crosher broke into his teenage girlfriend's house at about 11.20pm on November 4.

He was drunk and covered in blood and got in by kicking and smashing the front windows and climbing through.

Once inside he attacked her with the screwdriver and a kitchen knife he picked up in the house.

Carolyn Gardiner, prosecuting, described the 999 call to police the teenager made.

She said: “She became hysterical on the phone, saying he was smashing the front windows in.

“She was heard begging for him to leave. He kicks through the windows and enters the room. There were sounds of her being attacked and then she shouts that she has been stabbed and is bleeding.”

The court heard that the teenager was rushed to Basildon Hospital with a 3cm cut to the head and a 1cm puncture wound to the chest.

She has since made a full recovery.

The court heard that Crosher had a lengthy criminal record, including 39 convictions for 71 offences.

The first conviction was for a burglary in 1996, when Crosher was just 13 years old.

Sarah Vine, mitigating, said Crosher had struggled with drug addiction for more than a decade and was the victim of an unstable life.

She said: “He is somebody for the greater part has committed relatively low level offences entirely consistent with the usual run of crime association with people suffering drug addiction.

“Some of those offences are intimately linked with the almost comprehensive lack of stability in his life.

“He is undoubtedly broken. What he needs more than anything is stability.

“He is a man who has enjoyed little if anything by way of good fortune.

“Ricky Crosher is not bad, he is not dangerous. He has undoubtedly done a shocking thing and one that will haunt him for the rest of his life."

She added that the reason he was not charged with attempted murder was because the words “I might as well finish the job off” could relate to himself.