Hartlepool brute kept teenage partner prisoner, made her bark like a dog and threatened to chop her head off

The judge said convicted robber Jacob Bates, 26, from Hartlepool, had subjected her to an appalling catalogue of horrific domestic abuse over a long period of time.

He kicked her in the stomach when she was four months pregnant, gagged her with a sock and bit her face, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Shaun Dodds said Bates banned her from contacting her mother, family and friends, seized control of her money, stole her car and crashed it.

He sometimes apologised to her saying that he had a voice in his head called John who told him to carry out the attacks.

She eventually escaped in her pyjamas when a friend of Bates called at the house where she had been imprisoned for two days.

She was taken to hospital where doctors told her that the baby’s heart was still beating, and she was interviewed by social workers who called the police.

Bates accused her of having affairs with Pakistani men and he said that the baby was not his.

He smashed up the home so badly that she had to move out with the baby boy and her two-year-old daughter from an earlier relationship.

Mr Dodds told how Bates had treated her like a dog: “He made her get on the floor like a dog and if she wanted to speak to him she had to bark, this became a regular occurrence.”

‘I just became numb because I loved him’

Bates had a previous conviction for robbery when he bit a man on the cheek and stole his mobile phone, he had also assaulted a previous partner, and had been jailed for 24 weeks for breaching a non-molestation order on another woman.

The latest victim said in a Victim Impact statement: “I did not realise how bad and how volatile my relationship with Jacob Bates was.

”When I was living with him every day I just became numb because I loved him.

“I think there must be something seriously wrong with his head for him rot behave in that way. I really want him to be given some help.

”I suffer flashbacks, I’m not sleeping. I hate being on my own. I can’t even think about future relationships, I can’t even look at anybody that way.”

Despite everything she visited him in prison when he was on remand and she wrote letters to him saying that she was keen for a reconciliation, said Matthew Collins, defending.

He said that Bates had mental health problems, but in prison he had built up a thick portfolio of certificates for courses that he had taken to improve himself.

Judge Paul Watson QC told Bates, who appeared over a videolink from Durham Jail: “I am quite satisfied that you are a significant risk of serious harm to the public or members of the public, not only to X (the victim) but to anyone you might find yourself in a relationship with.”

He added: “It was an appalling catalogue of horrific domestic abuse over a relatively long period of time.

”What your partner had to endure at your hands was nothing short of appalling and the emotional scars that have been left as a result of your conduct towards her are deep and long-lasting.

”It was despicable and cowardly behaviour towards X. I accept entirely that you have a history of mental difficulties but you have committed what can only be described as disgraceful and horrendous conduct towards her.”

Bates, of Sandringham Road, Hartlepool, was given a total sentence of six-and-a-half years, four-and-a-half years jail with extended licence of two years.

He pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and making threats to kill, two charges of actual bodily harm assault, and controlling and coercive behaviour in July last year.