A MAN punched his girlfriend in the face and tried to strangle her, Redditch magistrates were told.
Andrew Leavy, of Wolseley Street in Bordesley, Birmingham, denied assaulting the woman, from Bushley Close, Woodrow, at Redditch Magistrates Court on October 6 but was found guilty on Monday (December 7) after going to trial. The 37-year-old also accepted a charge of criminal damage.
Jim Masson, prosecuting, said the victim went to pick Leavy up from a Redditch pub and found him exiting the disabled toilets with another woman, but still agreed to drive him home and drop off his friend.
The victim told magistrates that after the friend left Leavy screamed in her face and shouted he had been helping the other woman. When they reached Bromsgrove he asked his girlfriend to pull over which she did and he got out.
However he then knelt back in and tried to drag her out by her hair.
<b>Strangle</b>
She said she calmed him down and drove ten feet along Birmingham Road before he tried to strangle her, punching her in the cheek.
She told magistrates: “He took the keys and got out of the car and started kicking and punching the doors. When I got my phone out he said ‘go on call the police’.
Police were called by both the victim and a local resident whose family was woken by the fracas.
In his defence Leavy, who suffers from anxiety and aspergers. said his girlfriend had been aggressive and he feared for his safety.
“I tried to get the keys from her and there was a tussle and that is where I can only assume the key grazed her face,” he said.
“I got out the car and had a panic attack.
“I went into a fight or flight response and took that out on the car.”
However chair of the bench, Alwymn Griffith said police corroborated the victim’s version of events while the family woken by Leavy’s assault on the car said it lasted at least ten minutes.
Leavy was given a 12-month community order with 20 days rehabilitation and fined £120, ordered to pay £1,080 in court costs and £700 in compensation.
