A 46-year-old man who stabbed his former girlfriend 15 times in a frenzied attack after she threw him out has been jailed for seven years.

Kelvin Gray was told by a judge: "This attack was frightening, terrifying and wicked. It is a mercy that in the end she did not sustain injury that was life threatening."

Maidstone Crown Court heard that Gray, who admitted wounding with intent, could not accept that his relationship with Sonja Wraight was over.

She allowed him to stay at her home in St Agnes Gardens, Sheerness, as a friend, but he went berserk after she insisted he left and hurled his possessions out the door.

Eleanor Laws, prosecuting, said Gray stabbed 54-year-old Miss Wraight all over her body in a "sustained, controlled and hard-hearted" assault on January 29.

It happened after he had been drinking heavily. They argued and he took out a lock knife with a 2in blade.

Lunging at her stomach with it, he told the victim: "You should not have done it. I will prove how much I love you."

As he continued to rain blows down on her he told her he would kill her and then himself.

Miss Wraight was taken to Gillingham's Medway Hospital where she was treated for multiple stab wounds, including a collapsed lung.

The victim wept in court as Judge Andrew Patience, QC, told Gray: "This must have been a ghastly experience for her."