A BATTERED mum-of-four who dialled 999 and hid her phone under a pillow for an operator to listen in as she was being brutally attacked has today told of her terrifying ordeal. 

Donna Speirs was overheard screaming hysterically as thug Myles Leyden rained blows down on her — just a few feet from where their four-month-old baby was lying in a cot.

A police call handler was able to pinpoint Donna’s address in Greenock’s Lincoln Road and despatch officers as Leyden, 27, — unaware that the desperate emergency call was being monitored — repeatedly struck her, before producing a knife.

Donna, 32 — who sustained black eyes, multiple bruises and swelling in the assault — today said: “I want everyone to know what a beast he is.”

She added: “He was blind drunk and was demanding to see my phone. When he eventually got hold of my mobile he snapped it in half. 

“I went to bed to try and avoid him but he came in and punched me right across my face.

“I put my hands up to protect myself but he just kept going.”

The Telegraph told last month how Leyden had been on a marathon drinking session on June 26 and was accusing Donna of ‘talking to someone else’.

Donna said: “He held me down and kept yelling, ‘Tell me the truth’, but I was telling him the truth. I wasn’t seeing anyone else. 

“Afterwards he got up to turn the light on and have a look at my face and said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you’.”

Greenock Sheriff Court heard how Donna was afraid that Leyden was going to stab her with a kitchen knife he was holding and was so terrified that that she considered fleeing through her bedroom window.

She said she reconsidered because she would have been leaving the thug alone with her children.

Quick-thinking Donna said: “I was so scared. When he went to get the knife, that’s when I dialled 999 from the house phone which is beside my bed. 

“I hid the phone under the pillow. 

“I just hoped that the police would turn up, I hoped that they could hear what was happening. 

“I actually could hear the operator talking to me when the phone receiver was under the pillow. 

“So I managed to wriggle it further away in case he heard. 

“It was a woman call operator and I really think she saved my life. I’m so thankful to her.” 

Leyden is now behind bars serving a sentence imposed by Sheriff Derek Hamilton, who also granted a three-year non-harassment order for the violent offender to stay away from Donna.

The lawman told Leyden: “This is an appalling assault — an appalling catalogue of behaviour.

“You can consider yourself fortunate that this matter was prosecuted on a summary complaint rather than on indictment.

“If this case had been indicted, given your history which includes assault and robbery, an assault on indictment and conviction on indictment for a knife offence, you would be looking at a sentence of years and not months.

“Unfortunately parliament limits my powers and the maximum I can give you is 12 months.” 

Donna today slammed the sentence as a ‘farce’ and said she was speaking out in order to warn other women about Leyden.

She added: “The sheriff wanted to lock him up for longer, but he wasn’t allowed to because of the law.” 

Donna says she’s now determined to rebuild her life for the sake of her children.

She said: “For him to do what he did to me is the behaviour of a beast. There’s no other word for it. 

“Since it’s happened he’s shown no remorse at all and I hope he has a terrible time in prison. I hope he rots in hell. 

“No woman should have to put up with what I went through.”