Thug who attacked partner jailed for Christmas despite her pleas to crown court judge

A brute who battered his partner for years has been jailed despite her Christmas plea to a judge to let them spend it together.
The case was heard at Teesside Crown Court.The case was heard at Teesside Crown Court.
The case was heard at Teesside Crown Court.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC told Gavin Anderson, 37, that he had to think of her but also any future partners he might have.

The judge told him:"You are a coward and a violent coward at that trying to take it out on a vulnerable woman."

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Prosecutor Christopher Wood said that Anderson and the woman, who travelled from Great Yarmouth to plead for his freedom, had a two and a half year relationship with gaps because of domestic violence, but they always got back together.

In 2016 she made an allegation of domestic assault against him, but she did not turn up for the court case.

She was assaulted by him on a number of occasions after that.

Mr Wood said: "She said that she had no family and she relied on his flat as a place to live.

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"In November 2017 she contacted the police and they found her a place in a woman's refuge, but the next day she returned to him.

"After that the relationship was not perfect, but they managed to get on."

On March 17 as soon as she entered the flat she realised that he was drunk and he was aggressive and he accused her of hiding his toilet paper.

The council concierge rang through on the intercom and the police attended.

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They persuaded him to leave but 30 minutes later she received a call from his mother asking her to leave because no members of the family were willing to have him to stay because he was drunk.

He sent her threatening messages and he returned later with a bottle of whisky and then he hit her three times over the head with the bottle

She fell to the floor and he stamped on her hands and kicked her several times on her legs.

Then he bent down and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up before punching her several times on the left shoulder.

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Mr Wood said that Anderson punched her in the face very hard, and as she spoke to the police on her phone he poured the contents of an ashtray - water and tobacco - over her head.

He left and the same officers as before arrived and they could see that she was even more distressed and injured.

Anderson had two previous convictions for violence on her but she did not want a restraining order because they were back together and had moved out of the area.

Nigel Soppitt, defending, said that Anderson not longer took drugs and he had switched from whisky to lager, which she monitored.

Mr Soppitt said that they depended upon each other.

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The judge told Anderson:"There is an all too-familiar pattern to this.

"She was living with fear, guilt and responsibility and always having you back.

"And now I have carefully read a letter from her but I must have regard not only for her but for any future partners that you might have."

Anderson, of Kennedy Gardens, Billingham, was jailed for 20 months after he pleaded guilty to actual bodily harm assault.