Husband from Hartlepool jailed at Teesside Crown Court for 'catalogue of physical and emotional abuse'

Keith Fleetham, 51, was responsible for a catalogue of inexcusable behaviour towards the victim over seven years, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The court heard he would threaten her, push her, call her derogatory names and on one occasion pinned her against a wall by her throat.

On another he struck her with a pole, said prosecutor Philip Morley.

The victim revealed the years of abuse to police after she left him last year.

Mr Morley said: “He accepts that he was volatile and almost always happened when he was intoxicated through alcohol.

"He accepts there were some incidents when things became physical.”

Mr Morley said there was also mental abuse, including the name calling, asking her for her PIN number and losing his temper if the house was untidy.

Fleetham pleaded guilty to coercive or controlling behaviour between December 2014 and 2021.

In November last year he also pushed over a friend of his now ex-wife during a birthday party, causing the friend to hit her head on the ground and briefly lose consciousness.

During the same incident, Fleetham also caused his wife’s thumbnail to become detached when he tried to grab some keys out of her hand.

He admitted two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Zahra Baqri, mitigating, said Fleetham, who is well known in the community and local building trade, was taking medication for mental health issues and needed help with anger management.

She said he was “deeply remorseful” adding: “Mr Fleetham has no excuses for his behaviour. He has expressed absolute disgust with himself in conference [with me].

"He tells me the guilt eats away at him each and every day.”

But the judge, Recorder Aisha Wadoodi, said Fleetham showed no sign of remorse in a pre-sentence report, where he was reported to have said: “Arguments happen in every relationship”.

Recorder Wadoodi said: “What you accept through your basis of plea is a catalogue of physically abusive and emotionally abusive behaviour.”

She jailed Fleetham, of Whin Meadows, Hartlepool, for 25 months.