WOMAN STRANGLED BY FIANCÉ FEARED ‘HE WOULD NEVER LET GO’
Daniel Gee, known for his violent tendencies, assaulted his then-fiancé Melissa Keeley at her former home in Deal by grabbing her by the throat.He compressed her neck until her face was flushed and lifted her, causing her to stand on her toes.
The medical equipment technician had previously been convicted three times for domestic abuse against former partners but had avoided jail time until his recent sentencing.
This month, the 37-year-old from Dover received an 18-month prison sentence after Judge Simon Taylor KC warned that he might reoffend and termed his conduct cowardly.
Gee’s own pre-sentence report revealed he pleaded guilty mainly to benefit from a plea deal.
Melissa, 39, bravely spoke out after the hearing at Canterbury Crown Court about the incident.
She explained that on October 11, 2022, despite plans to take her children to school and go fishing with Gee, he woke up in a particularly bad mood that morning, which led to the violent attack.
“I said we are going to be late, and he started losing his temper,” she said “He lunged at me with his hands around my throat, and pushed up, and had his thumbs under my neck and my chin.
“It forced me onto my tiptoes, and I was slammed into the wardrobe behind me.
“He was gritting his teeth and spitting at me, and I grabbed his hands to see if I could pull him off.
“But he was holding on so tight that I kind of just accepted that he was going to really hurt me.
“I dropped my arms and it felt like it went on forever.” Gee finally released her neck and stepped away before Melissa – who described the attack as “pure horror” – managed to escape.
“I gasped for air,” she added.
“I was in such disbelief he could do that to me.” In Melissa’s victim impact statement read out in court, she said Gee “had an evil look in his face” and added: “I cannot recall why he was so angry at me.” Her ex-partner proceeded to smash a glass terrarium with a gecko inside it before Melissa fled the home.
She then received an influx of messages and missed calls from the abuser, asking where she was.
One of her friends was concerned about her following the incident – noticing changes in her behaviour – and reported it to the police, with Gee arrested shortly after.
Prosecutor Lucy Luttman said during the sentencing hearing how Gee told police during an interview he had acted in self-defence and denied he grabbed the woman by the neck.
“The defence set out was that the complainant had come at him angrily and pushed her away to protect himself,” she said.
“He denied he had committed any form of strangulation.” Melissa says “everything seemed fine” at the start of her relationship with Gee in 2021, and he asked her to be his wife about three months in.
“It is now I am aware of the gaslighting, the love-bombing and the trauma bonding,” she said.
“He would be overly romantic and tell you everything he wanted to hear.
“It was like he saw me coming and knew I was perhaps a little naive and a bit vulnerable.
“He knew what he was doing – this was not the first time.” Gee finally pleaded guilty ahead of his trial in November and was sentenced on January 22.
Representing Gee at this month’s sentencing hearing, Phil Rowley said the dad, of Whitfield Hill, Dover, was “open to rehabilitative intervention” to address multiple offences, which date back to 2008.
“He recognises he needs assistance in that regard and recognises his history of convictions is something which needs to be addressed,” he said.
Mr Rowley says Gee works a “demanding job” as a technician for a company which deals with medical and surgical equipment.
“He is working to provide for his partner and her son, and making a financial contribution to his daughter, who lives in the north-west of England,” he said.
Judge Simon Taylor KC says Melissa remembered him stepping towards her with “both hands open”, using his thumbs to push into her neck.
“She could feel herself going red in the face,” he told Gee.
“It felt like forever.
She was wondering if you would ever let go.” Judge Taylor said Gee had three convictions for violent offences – including one in 2015 for two counts of battery with “stark comparisons” to the case, where he grabbed the victim’s throat.
In 2016, during another battery incident, he pushed a partner following an argument and again “grabbed her around the throat”.
He was also convicted for battery again in 2021, and was given a caution in 2008 for making threats to a woman.
Gee, originally from Manchester, was given a suspended sentence in both the 2015 and 2016 cases, and a community order in 2021, meaning he had escaped prison after 18 years of committing domestic abuse.
Judge Taylor says Gee had experienced a “traumatic childhood” and pleaded guilty on the day of his trial.
But he said: “You told the author of the pre-sentence report that you only pleaded guilty because of a plea deal, and you continued to deny the offence.” “In my judgment, the account you have is a telling one.
“It is an identification of the continuation of your cowardly behaviour.” Judge Taylor added Gee presents a “high risk of reoffending and harm”.
Gee was handed an 18-month custodial sentence, as well as a 10-year restraining order to prevent contact with his victim, and will be released on licence following his time in prison.
He will also have to pay the statutory victim surcharge of £187.
