A JEALOUS ex-boyfriend repeatedly stabbed his pregnant former partner in a “frenzied attack” as their terrified four-year-old son screamed at him to stop.

Andre Smith, aged 25, broke into Rachel Kane's home in Lea Street, Kidderminster, wielding a nine-inch blade and began attacking her so violently in the hallway that the knife broke and she blacked out.

He then dragged her into the kitchen by her hair, punching her several times, and began stabbing her in the head and stomach using one of her own knives.

When a plasterers’ knife broke he turned to a potato peeler to continue his brutal assault before that also broke.

Her screams and those of her child alerted neighbours and her partner, who she had been talking to on the phone when Smith arrived.

Smith fled but was arrested in Hagley a short time later after ringing the police to tell them what he had done.

The woman was rushed to hospital in a critical condition with nine stab wounds, six of them to her abdomen.

Her injuries included lacerations to her uterus and liver, and a perforated bowel. She underwent emergency surgery and went into premature labour.

Despite efforts by the hospital to halt the labour, she gave birth a week later.

Smith was handed a 20-year extended prison sentence at Worcester Crown Court yesterday (Monday).

Judge Robert Juckes QC said Smith "plainly" posed a risk not only to Miss Kane, but to any other partner he struck up a relationship with in future.

"What happened must represent as frightening an experience that it is possible for a person to have," he said.

"The scene where she was found is a dreadful one because of the amount of bloodshed."

Miss Kane, 25, gave birth to a healthy baby girl soon afterwards via Caesarean section despite one of the stab wounds puncturing the amniotic sack and losing almost a litre of blood.

However, she is unlikely to be able to have any more children due to the amount of internal damage caused by the attack, and was also left with permanent scarring to her head and abdomen.

Prosecutor Paul Whitfield said Smith, of Hamstead Road, Great Barr, and Miss Kane had been in a relationship for several years, but that ended in 2009 after he was convicted of two assaults against her - including one where he threatened her with a knife.

The couple had no direct contact but he saw their son through an arrangement involving Smith's mother.

On the evening of July 28, he had been looking after their son when he disappeared from his home, turning up unexpectedly on Miss Kane's doorstep.

During the attack, Miss Kane said she was knocked unconscious a number of times but could remember their son screaming at his father to stop.

Mr Whitfield said Smith had found out she was seven months pregnant by another man and he became jealous.

However, Abigail Nixon, defending, said Smith "simply doesn't know" why he went to Miss Kane's house that night, and could not explain the attack, except to say: "The red mist came down. He became angry because she wouldn't let him in."

The extended sentence includes a 15-year period of immediate custody, of which he will serve at least two-thirds depending on whether a parole board decides he no longer poses a threat.

He will spend the rest of the 20-year period on licence. A further charge of attempted child destruction was ordered to lie on file.