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A Chinese chef who hacked his boss with a meat cleaver because she was “like a female Gordon Ramsay” has been jailed.

Lianjun Sun, 51, lashed out when Ruo Jun Tian shouted at him for not preparing vegetables to her perfectionist demands.

Sun told a court that Tian, 50, tapped him on the chest with a knife and told him: “I could easily kill you."

He then lost his temper, picked up a cleaver from a nearby chopping board and delivered two sickening blows to her neck.

The first left an injury 12cm long from the midline of her throat to her left ear.

The second to the back of the neck fractured the top of her spine - missing her spinal column by just a single millimetre.

Tian’s screams alerted fellow workers at the New China takeaway in Ipswich, Suffolk and paramedics rushed her to hospital for two life-saving operations.

Sun hid the cleaver under a fridge before returning home to change his bloodstained clothing.

He was later arrested and charged with attempted murder.

His top with blood on it and blood-stained tissues were found at his home while the meat cleaver was eventually found in some undergrowth.

Sun, of Ipswich was cleared of attempted murder and the judge accepted his guilty plea to the charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm.

He was jailed for ten years at Ipswich Crown Court today.

Det Sgt Carl Dye said: “This was a truly horrific and brutal attack on the victim, one I am sure will take her many years to get over both psychologically and physically.”

Ms Tian’s ex-husband Michael Wan said she liked everything to be perfect in her kitchen and behaved like a female version of Gordon Ramsay.

He told the court: “She’s a person who wants things done properly. It’s like ‘Hell’s Kitchen’.

“If you watch Hell’s Kitchen Gordon Ramsay says ‘I want this. I want that to happen’.

“She’s got a mouth like Gordon Ramsay but is a woman.”

Mr Wan added his former wife, who is also known as Linda, was a very good chef and had a lovely personality.

He added: “All the customers like her cooking. She got on well with everyone.”