A CLACKMANNAN man who stabbed his partner in the arm and threatened to cut her leg and head off has been warned he faces certain jail.

Douglas Thomson, 37, attacked the 29-year-old complainer with a knife after they argued.

Falkirk Sheriff Court was told the pair had been drinking at Thomson's then home in Devonside, Tillicoultry, but fell out at around 3am when she said she wanted to go home.

Prosecutor Ruaraidh Ferguson said the argument "became heated" and Thomson seized her by the throat with both hands.

They then fell over the couch onto the floor, where Thomson stamped on the woman's back and leg up to eight times.

He then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her across the room to the kitchen where he took a knife with a nine-inch blade out of a drawer.

Mr Ferguson said: "He told her he was going to cut her head off."

Thomson, who also threatened to kill himself, told his terrified partner: "We're both leaving together – in a box."

He then tried to cut her and Mr Ferguson said that "a struggle for control of the knife ensued".

Thomson grabbed a second knife from the drawer and moved towards her, and she put her leg out to stop him.

Mr Ferguson said: "He said he'd chop her leg off."

The woman managed to push Thomson away, and he fell backwards, dropping the knife behind a radiator.

He got a third knife, seized her leg, and slashed her arm, causing a 1.5-centimetre wound.

The court heard that at this point she managed to run out of the front door and call police.

Officers arrived and Thomson was arrested.

He told cops: "I just wanted to cut [her] head off."

Thomson, now of Woodside Terrace, Clackmannan, pleaded guilty to threatening and abusive behaviour and assaulting the complainer to the danger of her life.

Ms Toni Pentecost, defending, said initial background reports had suggested Thomson should be assessed by officers from the Caledonian Men's Project violence reduction programme and a psychologist.

Deferring sentence until March 21st, Sheriff Craig Caldwell told Thomson: "You carried out a serious sustained violent assault on your former partner.

"There appears to me to be no alternative to a custodial sentence, but a psychological assessment might enlighten the matter if only to the extent of determining its length."