She said that when McMenamin burst into her room she had been paralysed with fear and thought he was going to kill her.

 She said that when McMenamin burst into her room she had been paralysed with fear and thought he was going to kill her.

She now had trouble sleeping and kept playing what happened over in her mind. She also had started carrying a personal alarm and had started self-defence classes.

McMenamin of Cricks Road, West Row, admitted assaulting the woman causing her actual bodily harm and criminal damage to the door of her flat.

Pamela Brain for McMenamin, accepted the woman must have been extremely frightened during the incident and said her client was “remorseful, devastated and ashamed” of what he’d done.

She said he’d been drinking and had taken cocaine and had little memory of the incident.

“It was completely out of character,” said Miss Brame.