PONTYPOOL MAN JAILED AFTER SUFFOCATING GIRLFRIEND WITH PLASTIC BAG
POLICE have released the mugshot of a thug who suffocated his girlfriend with a black plastic bag before burning her cheek with a cigarette.Gavin Tovey, 42, from Pontypool also strangled her and threw her around a room “like a doll”.
Jailing him for three years and seven months at Cardiff Crown Court, the judge, Recorder Victoria Hillier, told him: “These offences were committed in a domestic abuse context.
“It was a violation of trust and security and this was a terrifying incident.
“You suffocated her with a plastic bag in her own home.” Tovey was also made the subject of a five-year restraining order not to contact the woman.
In her victim impact statement, she said: “This has had a massive impact on my mental health.
I have been traumatised.
I can’t sleep and I feel that I can’t switch off.” The court heard how the couple had been in a two-year relationship which had “issues, particularly when the defendant had been drinking and using cannabis”.
Tovey strangled his now ex-partner and smashed her phone after she wanted to leave him when she found out he had been cheating on her.
After this attack, he apologised to her and convinced her to stay with him.
On Sunday, June 8, Tovey falsely suspected her of having a man in the house.
“He began to accuse her of cheating on him, although this was patently untrue,” Sol Hartley, prosecuting, said.
“The defendant was shouting and screaming around the house and the victim told him to pack up his belongings and leave.
He began throwing plant pots and a vase out of the window.” Mr Hartley added: “The defendant then emptied the contents of a black bag and put it over her head and tightened the end.
She was screaming that she couldn’t breathe – she thought he was going to kill her.
The victim then describes being thrown around the room like a doll before he burnt her cheek with a cigarette.” After his arrest, Tovey was remanded in custody and wrote the woman letters from prison in which he told her he loved her and begged her to “get me out of here”.
Although he has not been charged with any offence relating to this, Mr Hartley, said it was an aggravating feature of the case because it was an attempt to “dissuade her from supporting the prosecution”.
The defendant, of Elm Close, Trevethin admitted intentional suffocation, intentional strangulation, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assault by beating and criminal damage.
Tovey has seven previous convictions for 15 offences, including one for violence back in 2008 against another girlfriend.
He had also served one day in prison for contempt of court.
Jac Brown, representing him, said: “He has shown his remorse and wants to rehabilitate himself.
“The defendant’s best mitigation are his early guilty pleas.” “The defendant accepts that the relationship is over.”
