A BRUTE who meted out a horrific series of life-threatening assaults on a woman over more than five years of violent abuse has been locked up.

Marc Cox was handed a three-year prison term after a jury convicted him on three indictment charges following a trial at Greenock Sheriff Court in July.

The 47-year-old's catalogue of crimes included repeatedly choking a woman and restricting her breathing on various occasions between January 2009 and December 2014 at addresses in Greenock and Wemyss Bay.

In one incident, Cox grabbed the woman by her neck and compressed it until she was rendered unconscious.

He also pinned a young child against a wall by the neck to the danger of their life in 2010.

On a separate occasion, Cox took hold of the steering wheel of a vehicle being driven by the woman while he was under the influence of alcohol and pulled at it, causing the car to repeatedly swerve on the road while four young children were in the back seat.

READ MORE: Greenock sex offender spared jail for explicit messages to decoys posing as girls

Cox also grabbed the victim by the head and threw her to the ground on a different date and grabbed her by the hair and struck her head off of a door on a separate occasion.

The thug seized the woman by the hair when she was pregnant and pulled her from a garden into a property, and later pulled her up a flight of stairs by her hair.

Cox was also found guilty of pinning the woman against a wall, lifting her by the neck, pursuing her and repeatedly grabbing her on the body over the near-six-year period of offending.

Between October 2010 and December 2014, Cox repeatedly behaved aggressively towards the first complainer, repeatedly shouted and swore at her, and uttered threats to kill her and four young children.

Cox, previously of Cardwell Road in Gourock, was jailed for three years.

A non-harassment order was also imposed in respect of each of the victims, meaning he will not be allowed to contact or communicate with them for the next three years.