A DRUG dealer who poured petrol onto a kitchen floor and lit it with a burning tea towel after holding a knife to his partner’s throat has been jailed for nine years.

Glyn Dorrington, 31, was on bail for drug offences committed in Chepstow at the time, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

High on drugs, he attacked his partner late at night at her home in New Tredegar in January 2021, headbutting her and threatening her with the knife before igniting the petrol, causing an explosion.

The incident captured on CCTV saw him tell the terrified woman: “If you want to take me for a ride? I’ll show you a ride to hell.”

Dorrington, who is orginally from Monmouth, was also before the court for drug offences, after heroin, cocaine and illegal tablets worth some £4,000 and £2,700 in cash were seized in three separate 2019 raids on his Fisherman’s Walk home in Bulwark, Chepstow.

Prosecutor Laurence Jones said the defendant had unleashed a “prolonged and unlawful violent assault” on his partner at her Pritchard Terrace home, claiming she had been unfaithful with an ex-partner, who was also the father of one of her children.

He made slashing motions on his arms with a Stanley knife, which she grabbed before he held her down on the bedroom floor and punched her in the head.

She tried to escape, but he punched her arms and grabbed her hair, face and lips before picking up a kitchen knife and threatening her with it, the court heard.

He said he wanted to “hurt” her and pinned her on the bed and put the knife to her neck before pouring petrol out of a 25-litre drum onto the kitchen floor.

His victim tried to stop him but he headbutted her in her right eye and lit the tea towel, throwing it onto the pool of petrol and starting a blaze that left the house “black with smoke”.

Dorrington then put the fire out, blaming her for his actions and telling her to claim the fire was an accident caused by cooking.

She reported the incident to police, saying she held “a genuine fear… he would hurt me”.

“The way he’s spoken to me about violence, sexualising and glorifying it, the way he has physically abused me and controlled my life in coercive ways makes my skin crawl,” she said in a statement.

When arrested, Dorrington claimed the fire was an accident and he hadn’t assaulted his partner, but later admitted charges of arson with intent to endanger life and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The court was also told that in June 2019, police executed a warrant at his home in Fishermans Walk where 18.71g of heroin, 3.17g of cocaine and eitzolam and alprazolamtablets worth £1,629 were seized.

In September, another raid found 3.49g of crack cocaine and alprazolam worth £700, while in December a third warrant uncovered diazepam tablets.

In April 2020, police saw him try to swallow fragments of blue and white pills when he was stopped behind the wheel of a Mini in Chepstow.

Methadone and class C etizolam were found inside, and his phone contained evidence of dealing in heroin, methadone and buprenorphin.

He admitted charges of possession with intent to supply class A drugs and class C drugs.

Julia Cox, for the defendant, said he suffered with ADHD and Crohn’s disease and the arson had been an “act of impulse”.

Dorrington has 17 previous convictions, and received a suspended jail term in 2020 for dangerous driving in a play area off Carbonne Close in Monmouth, when he almost knocked a child off a bike doing ‘doughnut’ spins in a van.

Judge David Wynn Morgan jailed him for nine years, plus an extended licence of three years and told him he wil serve at least six years before he is eligible for parole.