MANSFIELD MAN SPARED JAIL AFTER ASSAULT FUELED BY ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG USE
A man who was drinking up to 20 pints in a day as well as taking cocaine has been spared jail over a nasty assault on his partner.The extent of Jason Morland's drinking was referred to by a judge, who imposed a restraining order for him to stay away from his victim for five years.
A 12-month prison sentence was handed out, suspended for two years, and he was ordered to pay costs of £150 - money that should come from his "drink fund", said Judge Timothy Spencer QC.
"You are a hardworking man and have always been in employment," he told Morland.
"You undertook tough manual work.
But it seems to me your drug-taking and drinking got out of control." "You were drinking 20 pints some days and taking cocaine on top." And he said he did not know what got into Morland on the day of the attack "but you were clearly in the foulest of foul moods".
Morland pleaded guilty to assault, causing bodily harm, on a woman he had been in an "off and on relationship with for approximately three years", said Katrina Wilson, prosecuting at Nottingham Crown Court.
She described how the violence began on July 10 when Morland had been sulking around her address after having an argument with a work colleague.
As the atmosphere got worse, he violently attacked her for no reason whatsoever.
He grabbed her neck with both hands and pushed her back onto a reclining settee and her head made contact with a wall.
He was shaking her by her neck with both hands and she was gasping for air.
She lashed out and scratched towards him, then he grabbed each of her ears and threw her off the sofa onto the floor.
He attempted to pull her off there and onto her feet.
Morland suddenly stopped the attack, giving the woman a chance to shout upstairs to her daughter to come down.
But the defendant said to her "try and leave the house, I dare you" and "if that is how you are going to be, then you will have no food".
Morland, 30, of Thornton Close, Mansfield, threw food out of the freezer and cupboards and smashed eggs on the floor.
He went back to his partner and threw her onto the living room floor and knelt on her back, pressing down with his knee and punching her.
"She felt him grab her head and smash it back down on the carpet and 'felt her nose go'," added Miss Wilson.
Morland stopped again and said "what have I done to you?" and gestured as if to comfort and cuddle her.
The woman suffered bruising, swelling and scratches.
Morland handed himself in to the police and said he had taken substances on the day of the incident and felt mortified and ashamed at what he had done.
Morland has since voluntarily referred himself to a support organisation.
