Image caption Roger Weir was angry his former fiancee had a new partner

A man who injected heroin into the mouth of his baby daughter and tried to murder the child's mother has been jailed for 18 years.

Roger Weir, from Poole in Dorset, shot his ex-partner Gillian Blackmore, 27, with a flare gun before attacking her with a meat cleaver in Southampton.

He squirted the drug into his 20-month-old daughter's mouth to "get at" her mother, Winchester Crown Court heard.

Weir, 45, of Slough Lane, admitted trying to murder Ms Blackmore.

A previous hearing was told how Weir was angry his former fiancee had a new partner, Barry Towler, a police community support officer.

He told police: "I can't live with the thought of someone else raising my daughter."

Covered in blood

Weir went to Ms Blackmore's Eastleigh flat on 7 May armed with a specially-adapted flare gun capable of firing bullets.

He told her "I want you dead" before firing the gun at her, beating her with a baton and attacking her with the cleaver.

Image caption Gillian Blackmore managed to escape and raise the alarm

Ms Blackmore managed to escape and raise the alarm. Police found her covered in blood from injuries to the back of her neck.

The court heard Weir had locked himself in a room with the baby and was threatening to kill her.

A police officer finally persuaded him to come out.

The baby spat out most of the heroin and was not harmed.

Weir admitted administering a noxious substance to the child, with the prosecution accepting he had not wanted to murder his daughter and had acted "in the heat of the moment".

Following the sentence, Martyn Booth, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "This was an extreme case of domestic violence.

"Ms Blackmore has been the victim of a dreadful attack that night.

"We hope that Ms Blackmore and her daughter will now be able to move on with their lives and that this conviction will bring some kind of comfort to them."