PETERLEE MAN JAILED FOR ASSAULT AND ABUSIVE CAMPAIGN AGAINST PARTNER
A MAN punched his partner during a drunken house party they were hosting on New Year’s Eve, a court heard.Barber Ben Anderson then ran a campaign of abuse and threats against the woman when police became involved and as court proceedings loomed in the case.
Durham Crown Court heard it culminated in him daubing offensive messages on her door and slashing two tyres on her mother’s car.
Anderson was charged with unlawful wounding, witness intimidation and two counts of criminal damage.
He previously denied all four counts, but with a trial approaching next month, he changed his pleas to guilty and also admitted coercive behaviour within a relationship.
Paul Abrahams prosecuting, said the assault took place as the couple were drinking at home with a few friends and family members on New Year’s Eve, 2015.
Mr Abrahams said Anderson had drunk quite heavily and his behaviour became “erratic”, getting into a fight with his brother.
When his partner tried to intervene, he told her to calm down and threw a single punch to the chin, causing her to fall to the floor and temporarily black out.
When she came round she was bleeding heavily, and she left the house to go to a friend’s home, before receiving 16 stitches to a 4cm laceration under the chin at a walk-in centre.
Anderson, 28, of Eskdale Walk, Peterlee, was arrested some time later and made no comment in police interview.
But, following his ultimate admissions, Miss Waugh told the court that he does not have a long record, with only one previous offence for violence, in 2011, but not in a domestic incident.
Jailing him for 21 months, Judge Simon Hickey said it was a “nasty” injury he caused her, before making the later “offensive and abusive” comments and threats.
He made a five-year restraining order preventing him trying to contact his now ex-partner.
