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(Image: NC)

Sergeant Rob Bryan shared his story to highlight the number of men suffering domestic violence.

He was discharged in March 2014 with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving 21 years in the Army.

Rob had hoped his partner Angelique Doyle, 36, would help him to recover but she left him scarred for life.

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She assaulted the 43-year-old, who also has a heart condition, after turning up drunk at his Manchester home.

Doyle smashed a bottle over his head and slashed him with a shard of glass.

Rob was also hit with a wooden stool and bitten before managing to get her out of his flat.

Police arrested her despite Doyle telling officers it was Rob who assaulted her.

Rob, who has served on the frontline, called her outbursts “terrifying”.

He said: “Nobody looking at me would ever guess I was a victim of domestic abuse.

“It doesn’t make me less manly to admit I was terrified of the woman I loved and what she would do.”

In September Doyle pleaded guilty to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court.

She was sentenced to 20 months in prison.

Doyle was also issued with a four-year restraining order.

Rob, who is having therapy for PTSD and is unable to work, told of his ordeal to encourage other men to come forward.

He said: “If sharing my story gives one other victim the courage to speak out, I’ll be happy.”

Rob served in Northern Ireland and Bosnia and spent six months in Afghanistan as a sergeant in the Royal Corps of Signals.

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He met Doyle in a pub in May 2014 and they started dating.

Rob said she was often boozy and aggressive and would apologise after her outbursts.

But on September 21 she arrived at his house “drunk and angry”.

After a brief argument, she smashed a wine glass over Rob’s head and hit him with a bottle.

When he tried to restrain her she slashed him with glass and bit him before hitting him with a stool and smashing his guitar on him.

After ten minutes Rob managed to push Doyle out the flat, before collapsing in a pool of blood.

He was treated for his wounds by doctors but discharged himself that night as previous hospital visits had given him panic attacks.