A BODYBUILDER with a history of violence against women has been ordered to attend a "building better relationships" course after battering his partner.

Mark Pelz, 41, from Amesbury, has been spared jail after he attempted to strangle his 26-year-old girlfriend and punched her in the face following an argument over a Facebook post in April 2013.

When she fought back, the father-of-three threw her to the floor and struck her face again with his knee.

It was the latest of a series of convictions for violence offences held by Pelz, dating back as far as 1989, which included a racist assault on a female soldier where he punched her three times in the face.

Sentencing at Bournemouth Crown Court, Judge Jonathan Fuller QC said the defendant had an "appalling record for violence" and described the case as "disgraceful".

However, he proposed to take "what some might say is a lenient approach" and suspended Pelz's 24 month jail term for two years.

He was ordered to attend the building better relationships and alcohol treatment courses and to undergo probation supervision for two years.

Judge Fuller said: "You have got a chance, it is up to you what you do with it."

Pelz, of Solstice Rise, admitted one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in relation to the incident in 2013, which occurred in Salisbury.

He also admitted common assault on the same woman, which occurred at their home in Ascham Road, Bournemouth, on June 18 last year.

The first incident occurred after a man commented on a photo of Pelz and his victim, Gemma Carr, on Facebook.

Prosecutor Janice Brennan said "controlling" Pelz had then demanded the man's phone number, called him, and became angry when that man described him as a "bully".

It was then he launched his violent assault, leaving Miss Carr with a clinical fracture to her nose.

However the victim, who now lives elsewhere under a different name, was "vulnerable" and "dependent", the prosecutor said, and told police she didn't want Pelz to go to prison. He told officers that she had struck him first.

During the second incident, in which a neighbour alerted police after hearing "shouting and screaming", Pelz left his victim with bruising on her arms. At around the same time he set images of the notoriously violent criminal Charles Bronson, now Charles Salvador, as his Facebook profile picture.

The court heard Pelz's record included counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997 and 2000, common assault in 1994, 1996, 1997, 2002, and 2005, threatening behaviour in 1995, 1997, 2008 and 2012, causing grievous bodily harm in 1997 - an assault which fractured the victim's eye socket - and causing grievous bodily harm with intent - the attack on the soldier mentioned above.

In mitigation, Tim Akers said his client had entered guilty pleas, albeit on the day of his trial.

"Mark Pelz has not committed any offences against the person now for some four years," he said.

"While on the one hand one might not think four years is a great deal of time, in light of his record it is a significant period of time."

He said Pelz's upbringing had "gone badly wrong" and that he was physically abused by his father before being raised in foster homes.