NORTHUMBERLAND MAN JAILED FOR STRANGLING PARTNER AND STAGING DIRTY PROTEST IN POLICE CELL
A violent thug left his partner fearing death by strangling her three times after rejecting a cuddle.Leonard Tyler turned nasty for no apparent reason after spending the night at his then-girlfriend's home.
Newcastle Crown Court heard he repeatedly wrapped his hands around her neck and threw her to the floor in an attack spanning 20 minutes.
After being arrested, he then smeared his own excrement on the walls and door of his police cell in a sickening dirty protest.
Now Tyler, who had been released from prison on licence after being locked up for robbery, is back behind bars.
The court heard Tyler had stayed over at his then-partner's home in Lynemouth in August this year.
There had been no issues that night but after waking up the following day, the woman tried to cuddle Tyler, prompting him to tell her to "get the f*** off me".
As a result, the woman went to go downstairs and he demanded to know where she was going.
Gabrielle Wilks, prosecuting, said: "She said she was going downstairs.
He grabbed her and began pulling her back saying 'you're not going downstairs like that you stupid **** get some clothes on'." "She was dragged onto the bed and he got on top of her and wrapped his hands around her neck and began squeezing really hard, in her words, with such force it restricted her breathing.
"At the time, she said she thought she was going to die.
She told him to get off her and leave her address.
"She got up intending to go downstairs but the defendant grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her onto the floor.
She was carrying two cups at the time and his actions caused one of the cups to smash.
She told him to leave again but he ignored her and said he was going nowhere.
The victim, who was by now crying, said Tyler then took her phone, which she tried to grab back.
Miss Wilks said: "He grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the floor again, saying 'why are you f****** crying you stupid ****'." Having taunted her by saying "what are you going to do, ring the police", he then threw her on the bed again and started strangling her again, with the victim saying he was "squeezing as tight as he could".
Tyler then said he would leave but that he was taking a laptop he had bought her as a gift.
When she refused to give him the pin number for the computer, he slapped her face then wrapped his hands around her neck for a third time.
Mis Wilks said: "At this point she felt as if she lost consciousness and passed out for a short period.
When she woke she said she was confused and he was still shouting for the laptop pin.
He then smashed the laptop." Having asked whether the relationship was over, he left.
The woman said the whole incident lasted around 20 minutes and she was left with bruising to her leg, neck and eye and her neck was also swollen.
She told her mother what happened and she contacted police, who found her in a distressed state with visible injuries.
She said in a victim impact statement: "I thought I was going to die while he was strangling me.
I feel frightened and scared in case he comes back." Tyler was later arrested and while in police custody, he staged a dirty protest, reaching into the toilet of his cell and smearing excrement across the wall and door, obscuring a CCTV camera.
Tyler, 35, of Eden Terrace, Lynemouth, has 51 previous convictions, including assault and robbery, for which he was jailed for four years in 2022.
He has now been recalled on that sentence.
In relation to the latest offences, he admitted strangulation, assault by beating and criminal damage to the police cell.
He was jailed for 16 months and two weeks and given a ten-year restraining order.
Judge Tim Gittins told him: "You and those like you who would treat their partner in such a disgusting and frightening fashion must appreciate that sentences of imprisonment will follow.
Your behaviour is both dangerous and terrifying in restricting breathing." The judge said Tyler's dirty protest was "simian behaviour" done in revenge for him being arrested.
Liam O'Brien, defending, said: "He had the good sense to enter an early guilty plea and that demonstrates his remorse for this conduct.
He is ashamed of the way he behaved.
He is not a man who has a history of behaving aggressively towards partners.
It was wrong, he knows it was wrong.
It was madness, as he describes it to me, and he is very sorry."
