Cassie Ventura told Sean “Diddy” Combs she was “not a rag doll” but “someone’s child” after the rapper assaulted her at a hotel in 2016, according to texts read to court. 

Combs’s lawyers have tried to suggest he was suffering from drug withdrawal symptoms in 2016, when he was caught on video hitting his ex-girlfriend then dragging her along the floor at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles.

The footage, published last year by CNN, is a key piece of evidence in the case.

Reading a text message she sent to Combs after he attacked her, Ventura said: “When you get f--- up the wrong way you always want to show me that you have the power and you knock me around. I’m not a rag doll, I’m someone’s child.”

Ms Ventura, an R&B singer and the disgraced rapper’s ex-girlfriend, took the stand at Manhattan federal court again today for her fourth day of testimony against Combs.

He is charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex-trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. If convicted on all counts, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, and could face life in prison.