YEADON MAN JAILED FOR FOUR HOURS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
A YOUNG man who spent four hours beating his girlfriend whilst keeping her locked in a house has been jailed for 80 weeks by a judge at Bradford Crown Court.Riley Lister was said to have carried out “three ugly pieces of domestic violence” during 2024 that left the victim with a suspected dislocated knee and bruises to her face.
Following his final assault upon her, last December, he refused to let her leave unless she covered her injuries with make-up.
Lister, 20, of Henshaw Avenue, Yeadon, was also handed a restraining order that bans him from any contact with the victim for five years.
Barrister Stephen Littlewood, prosecuting, said Lister and the victim had, from 2021, been in a “loving and kind” relationship that changed over time.
Sometime in 2024, following an argument that spilled out into the street, Lister ran at the woman and kicked her to the legs outside a primary school.
She fell to the kerb and twisted her knee out of place, which she believed to have been dislocated.
She limped home and was able to “push the knee back” into place.
In September that year, the pair were at a petrol station when Lister began arguing.
He pushed the victim and then, on the forecourt, “swung at her face with a fist” which clipped her chin and caused bruising.
Three months later, Lister tried to barge his way into the victim’s friend’s home where she was visiting.
She made the decision to leave Lister, and the next day went to their home to return a phone that belonged to him.
When she arrived, he grabbed her, pulled her inside, and closed the door, leaving her friend outside.
Mr Littlewood said: “He began assaulting her by punching her to the face.
“When she attempted to leave, he prevented her, and he closed the curtains when she tried to look out.
“She said that assault lasted, on and off, for around four hours whilst the friend waited outside and tried in vain to get [Lister] to let the [victim] go.
“She was left with bruising all over her face.
[Lister] said she couldn’t leave the address until the bruising had settled down.
“He would often tell her to use make-up to cover bruises so that friends and family members, and also the police when they attended in the past, wouldn’t see any injuries.” Lister was arrested after turning up at the victim’s relatives’ homes and at a pub, where staff deterred him from doing anything further.
In a police interview he denied ever assaulting the victim and said she had been “the manipulative one in the relationship”.
In a statement read to the court the victim said she had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and had not been sleeping well “due to me being scared of him hurting me and my family.” She said she was no longer the “bubbly” person she used to be, had had nightmares about the abuse, felt suicidal, and “lost all feelings of worth”.
Lister later pleaded guilty to three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Mitigating, Anastasis Tasou said Lister had a perfectly normal life up until 2022 when his sister took her own life, an event that, he said, “tore the family apart”.
He said Lister received no help or counselling with dealing with the loss of his sibling, which led to problems managing his emotions and dealing with anger during a “difficult” relationship.
He said that at the time the couple were said to be separated, Lister received 203 text messages in one day from the victim, many of which were “accusatory” in nature and referred to suspected infidelities.
He said Lister’s maturity “was thwarted” by the tragedy that befell his family.
Sentencing Lister, who appeared via video link from HMP Doncaster, His Honour Judge Christopher Smith described “a worrying pattern of behaviour” that involved “three ugly pieces of domestic violence”.
He added: “There’s that awful argument outside the primary school.
“Then there’s the unpleasant incident at the petrol station, too.
In broad daylight, you’re punching her.
“Then this very worrying episode where, for four hours, you’ve got her inside the house and you’re repeatedly assaulting her.
“It’s cumulative.
It builds with each assault.
“You have no doubt left her really badly affected by this.”
