KIRKBURTON COUNCILLOR MARK SYKES THREW TEA IN LOVER’S FACE
Sykes threw a cup of hot tea in her face after discovering she had been seeing another man.Prosecutor Carole Lawford told the court yesterday: "Mr Sykes was having an extra-marital affair with the complainant for nine months.
"The pair work together all day, every day.
They are both councillors – that’s how the relationship began.
"On October 25, 2010, at midnight he attended at her house and was invited in for a cup of tea and a conversation.
"There was an argument because she had spent an evening with a male friend and hadn’t answered her phone.
"Mr Sykes told her: ‘When I phone you should always pick up the phone’.
"He said she was winding him up and in anger he threw the cup of tea at her.
In doing so he hit her in the side of the face – he said inadvertently." Sykes, of Marsh Lane in Shepley, initially denied assault, claiming both he and Ms Atkinson had knocked the cup at her home at Dob Royd in Shepley.
However, he changed his plea to guilty on the first day of his trial on March 29.
Defending, Mike Sisson-Pell said Sykes had initially pleaded not guilty "on the advice of other solicitors".
He added: "He has always accepted his culpability.
During this conversation she was telling him about seeing someone else.
"It’s hardly surprising that some people snap under that pressure.
"He accepts that he threw a cup of tea over her but it was entirely out of character." Mr Sisson-Pell added that appearing in court had been an "absolutely catastrophic" experience for his client.
The solicitor told magistrates that Sykes was "well able to pay any amount of compensation you feel appropriate".
Sykes was fined £350, ordered to pay £200 of the prosecution’s costs and a £15 victim surcharge.
Sykes is a Conservative councillor for the Shepley ward of Kirkburton Parish Council.
He was up for re-election in yesterday’s poll.
