Canberra man jailed for violent attacks on pregnant partner

A Canberra man who struck his pregnant partner in the stomach with his knee and stood on her throat has been sentenced to nine years jail in the ACT Supreme Court.

Michael John Watson, 41, pleaded guilty to five charges after two attacks on the victim and another man in 2013.

The court heard the first assault happened when the woman woke to find Watson holding a knife against her hand.

He told the woman, "I am going to cut your fingers off and you will never play the violin again".

"You have five seconds to get out before I kill you."

The woman fled to a neighbour's house but Watson pursued her, accusing her of being unfaithful to him.

Watson attacked the woman, choked her and held her around the neck against a wall with her feet off the ground.

He then he kneed her in the stomach.

When the neighbour tried to intervene Watson punched him in the face several times.

Police arrived and detained Watson, who said to the woman as she was leaving, "I hope the baby dies".

The woman was taken to hospital where a doctor found the baby had already died before the incident.

Watson later got bail and despite strict bail conditions he went to the woman's home where he attacked her a second time, telling her, "I am going to kill you, bitch".

During the attack he stood on the woman's throat in a bid to choke her.

"This is a sad case of a man who thought extreme violence was the way of dealing with what he saw as the failings of his ex-partner," Justice Stephen Walmsley told the court.

Watson said he had no memory of the events, and that he has accepted the relationship is over.

Justice Walmsley set a non-parole period of five years.