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 the terrified 17-year-old’s house in Billericay and attacked her after she confessed to him she had been unfaithful.

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

Crosher appeared in Basildon Crown Court yesterday for sentencing, having admitted aggravated burglary with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm at an earlier hearing.

Judge John Lodge told him he could expect to spend eight years behind bars, and then a further five years on licence when he was freed.

The court heard Crosher broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house at about 11.20pm on November 4 last year.

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

Once inside, he attacked her with the screwdriver and a kitchen knife he found in the house.

Carolyn Gardiner, prosecuting, told the court about the teenager’s frantic 999 call.

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

“In the recording, she is heard begging for him to leave. He kicks through the windows and enters the room.

“There are sounds of her being attacked and then she shouts she has been stabbed and is bleeding.”

The court heard the girl was rushed to Basildon Hospital with a 3cm cut to her head and a 1cm puncture wound in her chest. She has since made a full recovery.

The court heard Crosher, of New London Road, Chelmsford, had a lengthy criminal record, with 39 convictions, involving 71 offences.

His first conviction was for a burglary in 1996, when he was just 13 years old.

Crosher’s lawyer, Sarah Vine, said Crosher had struggled with drug addiction for more than a decade and had suffered as a result of his unstable life.

She added: “He is somebody who, for the greater part, has committed relatively low-level offences, entirely consistent with the usual run of crime associated 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 – one that will haunt him for the rest of his life."

She added the reason he was not charged with attempted murder was because when he said, “I might as well finish the job off”, he could have been referring to himself.