Abusive County Durham man jailed after being found guilty of strangling and stabbing his partner in Hartlepool
A brute who strangled and then stabbed his partner four times in the face has been jailed.
Brian Robinson, 44, launched the frightening attack on the woman in her Hartlepool home after midnight after he took exception to a photograph she shared of herself with a friend on her phone.
Teesside Crown Court heard he flew into a rage and knocked a drink out of his then partner’s hand when she tried to calm the situation.
Uzma Khan, prosecuting, said: “She describes the defendant grabbing her by the throat for around ten to twenty seconds.
“She said that her legs went like jelly and she felt like she was going to pass out.”
She briefly managed to push Robinson away but he dragged her back.
Ms Khan added: “He then picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed her in the face four times in quick succession.
“He made the comment ‘no one will want you now.’”
Fortunately, the injuries were not serious, something the judge said was simply down to luck.
She fled into the street and was chased by Robinson before seeing a police vehicle and running to it for help.
Robinson made off in his car at speed along the A689 and onto the A19 while being pursued by the police.
Ms Khan said: “On the A19 he accelerated away from the police reaching speeds up to 120 miles per hour.”
It had been raining and the road conditions were described as poor.
Robinson eventually stopped in the middle of the carriageway in Newton Bewley after mounting a verge.
He tried to reverse when officers approached but he was forced from the car and arrested.
Robinson was found guilty after a trial earlier this year of strangulation, actual bodily harm assault and dangerous driving.
At his sentencing on November 10, an impact statement by his former partner read: “I cannot begin to explain how this experience has changed my life.
“The person I used to be; confident, outgoing and happy feels like a stranger to me now.”
Judge Jonathan Carroll said Robinson, of Bede Terrace, in Bowburn, near Durham City, had shown “no hint of remorse”.
Sentencing him to three years’ prison, he said: “You strangle somebody, you get a custodial sentence.
“Any form of strangulation is perfectly capable of killing somebody.”