PHOTOS- Woman gets face mercilessly battered by her ex-boyfriend

A mother whose face had to be rebuilt after she was battered by her jealous 26 stone ex-boyfriend has insisted he is not a monster.

Helen Callaghan - who is just 4ft 10in and weighs 6 stone - was beaten and throttled by Thomas Day after he found text messages on her phone from another man.Her face was fractured in 20 places - including her cheeks, nose and eye sockets - and surgeons were forced to rely on old photographs to reconstruct it by implanting metal plates into her jaw and cheeks.

 However, speaking for the first time since the brutal attack, Miss Callaghan, 28, has said her former partner didn't mean 'to hurt me in the way he did'.'I was told a pathologist's report found that one more blow possibly would have killed me,' said Miss Callaghan.

 

     'I was also told the type of injuries they found on me would normally be found on someone who was dead.'But I don't think he meant to hurt me in the way he did. I don't think he meant to kill me or break or the bones that he broke.

    'I didn't think he was capable of doing what he did. He's not a monster.'

Day, who is almost 6ft tall, was initially arrested by police on suspicion of attempted murder - to which he said: 'If I wanted her dead, I would have killed her.'

He was later jailed for nine years and four months for causing grievous bodily harm and common assault at Manchester Crown Court.

Miss Callaghan, from Wythenshawe, Manchester, has revealed how 39-year-old Day was about 16 stone when they met.He became more controlling and jealous as he gradually gained weight throughout the course of their relationship, she said.

    'He was unhappy because of his weight, it made him so depressed,' she said.'I didn't care what weight he was, it didn't make any difference to me, but it was a big problem for him.'He was terrified that I would leave him, and he wanted to know where I was and who I was with because of his insecurities.'He thought I was seeing somebody else but I wasn't. The text messages he saw didn't mean anything.

Miss Callaghan said she had been lying in bed at home when Day had started to batter her tiny frame - causing her to pass out in a pool of her own blood.

    There was blood everywhere - it was all over the place,' she said. 'My eye was swollen and closed up. My face didn't look symmetrical anymore.I looked like I'd been in a boxing ring.'

Miss Callaghan has had a tattoo printed on her back, below a previous inking of Day's name, reading, 'What doesn't kill you, Makes you stronger'.They have two kids together.