A Dublin man who falsely imprisoned and beat his ex-girlfriend while her children screamed outside her bedroom door has been jailed for two years.

Robert Maguire of Colthurst Gardens, Hunting Glen in Lucan attacked her on January 14th 2012 after finding out she was in a new relationship.

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He pleaded for leniency and asked the court to consider community service but the judge felt he had no choice but to send him to prison.

On the night in question, the woman put her children to bed at about 10.30pm.

She went to bed fifteen minutes later but was awoken a short time later when her bedroom light was switched on.

She said she then felt a bang to her face and saw Robert Maguire, her ex-boyfriend and father to three of her four children, standing over her.

She said he was shouting and spitting at her. He grabbed her by the throat and pushed her back onto the bed.

She said he kicked her in the side as she pleaded with him to stop.

Her baby was in a cot beside her bed and she could hear her other children screaming outside the door – which she then realised had been locked.

At this stage, she said her baby started to cry but Maguire wouldn’t her to go to her. Instead, he picked her up, opened the door and handed her to her eldest child.

She told Gardaí she remembered screaming for help when he locked the door again. The court heard he told her was going to kill her before he started kicking her again until she went unconscious.

The alarm was raised when a next-door neighbour heard her screams.

The court heard they’d been in a long-term on/off relationship that ended just before Christmas 2011.

At his sentence hearing in March, Maguire’s defence barrister Michael O’Higgins said the motive for the attack was that he’d found out his ex was in a new relationship.

He described it as a case of “sexual jealousy” and while it didn't justify what happened, he said it might help the court to understand his behaviour.

Mr Justice Paul Butler was asked to consider community service, but after considering the profound effect his actions have had on his victim and her eldest son, he decided nothing short of a custodial sentence was required for what he described as such a violent attack on an entirely defenceless woman in front of her kids.

He then sentenced the 35-year-old to four years in prison but suspended the final two years.