Taxi driver Lloyd Hilton Smith was jailed for seven years yesterday after a jury unanimously found him guilty of viciously attacking his ex-lover.

All 12 jury members also found Smith, 54, of no fixed abode, guilty of depriving Nicole Lambert of her liberty and of being in possession of an offensive weapon, namely a pipe, in the early hours of March 1 last year at Turtle Bay Crescent, Southampton.

Assistant Justice Archibald Warner said: ?I am of the view that the defendant has shown no remorse and, by pleading not guilty to those charges, has put the victim through the rigours of a long trial.

?This was a vicious and brutal attack by the defendant on the complainant.?

In a statement read to the court Ms Lambert, 35, described the attack as a near-death experience which had left her with permanent injury and depression.

Before Smith?s sentencing she said: ?I fear if he?s not given a custodial sentence he could just come back and finish me off. He would probably stop at nothing to kill me.?

She suffered a leg break as well as face and head injuries during the attack at the secluded cul-de-sac where Smith had driven her against her will before unleashing an onslaught and telling her she had ?better start screaming?.

Ms Lambert said both her knees now swell up when standing for long periods and cold weather causes severe pains in her legs, making it difficult to walk.

She still has blurred vision in her left eye and she must wear sunglasses at all times because light causes her eyes to water.

?My left arm can?t be raised over the shoulder. I need to use my right hand to support and raise it,? she said.

?The whole ordeal has caused me to be extremely depressed. Sometimes when I see a taxi, particularly the one Lloyd was driving, come past me, I still think he is coming to get me.

?Sometimes, I get frightened when I see some of his family members who look like him. My mind starts to wonder and I think to myself: ?Is this Libby? Could he be out of jail??

She said the trial had affected her children who were being teased about it by their peers.

?I feel even worse because, not only do I have to live with what has happened to me, my children have to live through it as well.?

Smith had labelled his victim a drug-addicted prostitute during the trial.

But Ms Lambert, who had nicknamed him ?Stalker? said: ?I am a normal citizen of this Island and, despite what anyone thinks of me, I did not deserve the beating given to me by Lloyd Hilton Smith.

?I will have to live with permanent physical damage for the rest of my life.?

After the verdict Smith, who had represented himself after sacking lawyer Mark Pettingill who had been paid for out of Legal Aid, was given the opportunity to speak before sentence was passed.

He said: ?I have never been in this predicament before and throughout the whole thing I have not understood what was going on.?

However, Mr. Warner, who had carefully coached Mr. Smith through painfully slow cross examinations, said: ?You claim you don?t understand but I was watching pretty carefully, you did a pretty good job.?

Smith, a divorced father with a clean criminal record, was given two years for deprivation of liberty and one year for possession of an offensive weapon to be served concurrently with the GBH sentence with time spent in custody taken into account.