A SERIAL domestic abuser is facing jail for attacking his girlfriend – while taking steroids ahead of a bodybuilding show.

Former Saint Andrew’s Academy pupil Paul Anderson, who lives in Barmill, and Carly McCabe began dating after meeting on Tinder.

Miss McCabe, 38, had no idea Anderson, 41, had a host of previous convictions for mistreating former partners. And the well built thug stayed true to form, turning the mother-of-four in to his fifth victim - and attacking her so savagely that she thought she was going to die.

He carried out the attack - which left her bloodied, bruised, grazed and physically shaking - while he was taking steroids in a bid to help him drop from 90kg to 80kg for an amateur bodybuilding show in Newcastle.

Anderson confessed to his shameful antics in a phone call to Miss McCabe where he begged for her forgiveness, blaming his actions on steroids and cocaine. But the callous brute refused to accept responsibility for his actions, pleading not guilty to the charges he faced at Paisley Sheriff Court, and claiming she had attacked him.

Miss McCabe said Anderson grabbed her by the hair, kneed her in the face, and dragged her from her sun room in to her kitchen and smacked her head off her worktop - before throwing her to the ground and raining punches and kicks on her face and back.

She added: “Then I saw him reaching for a knife. He was towering above me.

“He drew the knife along my throat, very lightly, to frighten me, obviously.

“He said something to me like, ‘you’re a vile piece of s***, I’ve never done anything like this to any woman before’.

“Then he got the knife again and very quickly pushed it towards my chest, but stopped just in front of my breastbone and said, ‘you’re not f****** worth the time’.”

Anderson, of Crawfurd Crescent, Barmill, said he had acted in self-defence. He admitted had broken his bail conditions by speaking to McCabe in a phone call a few weeks after the attack.

But the jury convicted him of assaulting Miss McCabe to her injury by pushing her, behaving in a threatening or abusive way towards her and breaking his bail conditions by contacting her.

Sheriff Frances McCartney then called for background reports to be prepared ahead of sentencing, adjourned the case for that to be done - and warned Anderson he will likely be jailed when he returns to the dock later this month to learn his fate.

She said: “You have six previous convictions for domestic offences and custody is a the forefront of my mind.”