During the incident, he said: “This is a life and death situation. Do you think I’ll just let you go?”

 During the incident, he said: “This is a life and death situation. Do you think I’ll just let you go?”

“She felt she was going to die and begged him to let her go,” said Dinal Lawlor, prosecuting.

McMenamin eventually told the woman that she had better leave and she had run out of the house into the street in her nightwear and bare feet just as police arrived.

After his arrest McMenamin had tested positive for cocaine and he had also been drinking, said Mr Lawlor.

The court heard that before McMenamin burst into the woman’s flat she heard him arguing and shouting at one of her flatmates and the sound of smashing.

In a statement read to the court the victim, who is a psychologist, said she had been so traumatised by the incident that she had been unable to return to her flat and had spent some time living in a hotel before moving into a house only occupied by women.