The Saskatoon man was charged with the kidnapping and assault of Mariana Cracogna.

He will serve five years and a little more than a month because of time already served in remand.

The court heard today that McLaughlin has a history of violence with women dating back to 2003.

In a victim impact statement, Cracogna wrote she thought McLaughlin was going to murder her. She was beaten badly during the kidnapping and tried to escape several times before a passerby found her by the highway in a rural area near Saskatoon.

Today, the Crown prosecutor laid out details leading up to the kidnapping.

Court heard that Cracogna and McLaughlin dated for two years, living together for a year and a half of their relationship in Cracogna's Saskatoon home.

In May of 2014, before McLaughlin assaulted and kidnapped Cracogna, she was living and working in Estevan, Sask. The prosecutor spoke about a deterioration in the relationship during that time.

According to the prosecutor, Cracogna returned home to Saskatoon on the afternoon of May 30 with plans of returning some items to McLaughlin. She had told people close to her that if they hadn't heard from her by a certain time that day that they should come to the house to check on her.

When Cracogna arrived at the house, the prosecutor said McLaughlin accused her of cheating and attacked her, pulling her to the floor and hitting her numerous times in the face. McLaughlin then threw Cracogna down a flight of stairs into the basement and used duct tape to bind her ankles and wrists together.

McLaughlin then left Cracogna in the basement and exited the house. He was going to move Cracogna's vehicle. During this time, Cracogna managed to remove some of the tape. The prosecutor said when she did that some of her clothing came off too. She managed to make it to the door of her home but McLaughlin caught her and threw her down the stairs again, court heard.

At this point, McLaughlin tied up Cracogna again, eventually forcing her into a truck's cab.

The prosecutor said Cracogna thought she was going to be murdered, that "this was the end" and that she later recalled worrying that her family would not be able to find her body.

While Cracogna was tied up in the back of the truck she used her teeth to remove the cover of the cab. The prosecutor noted she chipped her teeth while doing this. She then managed to jump out of the moving truck, falling onto the road.

Another motorist saw that and called police, reporting that a woman in her underwear was in distress. Cracogna had escaped the truck while it was travelling through a residential area, down a back alley near 7th Street and Munroe Avenue. McLaughlin noticed her attempt at escape, stopped the vehicle and forced her into the passenger's seat.

The prosecutor said McLaughlin then drove the pair to a rural area east of Saskatoon. At some point he managed to cut off his ankle bracelet (at the time he was under strict probation orders stemming from an assault in January) and threw out their cell phones.

Cracogna said she had trouble seeing where she was being taken as her eyes were swelling shut due to the beating, court heard.

The prosecutor said that once the pair were out of town, McLaughlin stopped the vehicle and then tried to cut Cracogna's wrists with a dull knife. He then tried to cut his own but could not. He asked Cracogna to stab him and she refused. This made McLaughlin angry, according to the prosecutor, and McLaughlin again assaulted Cracogna, choking her and striking her repeatedly in the ribs.

McLaughlin eventually told Cracogna she could go, but she couldn't see because her eyes were swollen shut. She stayed with McLaughlin for three days. They wandered around the rural area with McLaughlin giving Cracogna food and water and changing a bandage on her shoulder.

Court also heard that Cracogna recalled not wanting McLaughlin to die alone in the remote area.

Cracogna was eventually picked up by a passerby near the highway in the area.

McLaughlin also pleaded guilty to assault-related charges stemming from a different violent incident with a woman in January.

The court learned there were a number of documented instances of domestic abuse on McLaughlin's file, dating back to 2003.

The Crown prosecutor and defence lawyer agreed to a six year sentence for all of the offences.

During his explanation of the sentence, Judge Barry Morgan noted McLaughlin's repeated violence against women and said that illustrated his "prehistoric view of how women can be treated" and added the pattern of abuse was "disturbing".

Some of the police photos showed such severe injury to Cracogna that the judge said he did not realize such bruising was even possible.

"They are very dramatic photos," Cory Bliss, the prosecutor on the case, told reporters outside of court. "For a court of that judge's experience to say that, it certainly shows how shocking the photographs were."

When asked if he had anything to say to the court, McLaughlin said, "I'm sorry."

Judge Morgan said McLaughlin's expression of remorse did factor into the sentencing.

The defence told the court McLaughlin had grown up in an abusive atmosphere.

"These were extremely vile acts. These were acts that, as the judge phrased it, showed a prehistoric attitude towards women. A person whose attitudes were out of step with society," Bliss said.

Both women wrote in their victim-impact statements, parts of which were read in court Thursday, that they had been badly damaged by the violence.