BLACKBURN MAN JAILED FOR CONTROLLING AND ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP
A former personal trainer who bullied his girlfriend and assaulted her on three separate occasions has been jailed for three years and eight months.Bradley Reed, 27, broke a mirror over his girlfriend's head causing it to bleed, then forced his way into the locked bathroom and attacked her again as she tried to clean herself up, Preston Crown Court heard.
Throughout their four year relationship - which started when the woman was just 16 - Reed controlled her in multiple ways.
He would not let her go to the gym, wear makeup or have beauty treatments as he said she was trying to impress other men.
When she returned from a night out he would examine her naked body for marks or bruises from having sex with other people.
On several occasions he locked her in the house with no keys to let herself out.
She was late for work so frequently she lost her job.
He also stopped her from attending a festival with her friends and smashed several mobile phones to prevent her from reaching out to them.
"I had no idea the way he treated me wasn't normal relationship behaviour," she said.
A week after attacking her with the mirror, in December 2020, Reed assaulted his girlfriend for a second time - slapping her face and causing her to fall to the floor.
During that attack he spat at her and called her ugly, saying: "Look at you, you're disgusting.
No-one else would want you." On another occasion Reed asked what she had been doing during a brief separation.
She said she had been 'chilling and working' but when she admitted she had been to the cinema with a friend he punched her in the face, telling her she deserved it.
"It is only now I have got away that I realise what this behaviour was and what it did to me", she said.
"Over four years I went from happy, confident, family and career orientated to being miserable and trapped in a world I couldn't escape.
My confidence went to zero and I had no money because I wasn't allowed to work.
My mental health was at rock bottom." In 2024 the woman reported the abuse to the police.
Reed was involved in a serious motorbike accident and suffered brain injury and fractured skull.
He appeared in the dock in a wheelchair wearing a helmet after brain surgery.
