Bully jailed for attacks on pregnant partner over text messages
A violent ‘bully’ who twice attacked his partner while she was pregnant after becoming angry over text messages on her phone has been jailed.
Thomas Cleveland, aged 36, grabbed his girlfriend’s face and hit her over the head with a plastic bottle containing ice, it was said.
On another occasion, he punched her in the face, again over messages on her phone and Facebook page.
Wolverhampton Crown Court heard he was in breach of a suspended prison sentence for similar domestic abuse offences involving the same victim.
Mr Gerald Bermingham, prosecuting, said the defendant turned violent last year, assaulting his girlfriend numerous times after starting an on-off relationship with her in 2016.
On December 22 at his mother’s home in Oldbury, he challenged his partner over texts on her phone, becoming angry and attacking her so badly she needed medial treatment, the court heard.
He slapped he face, snapping her glasses, pushed her and then punched her in the back in the bedroom of the house in Eva Road.
Retaliating, she pulled the blanket off him, exposing his naked body, which prompted him to punch her in the face. Less than three weeks later, on January 10, he
struck her over the head with a plastic bottle, said Mr Bermingham.
On both occasions he was in breach of a 13-month suspended sentence imposed in November for a similar offence of violence against his partner.
Ms Naomi Nelson-Cofie, defending, said Cleveland had no other convictions apart from the domestic abuse offences against his partner, who wanted to continue their relationship.
Judge Dean Kershaw told him: “I’m in absolutely no doubt that you’re a bully, a man whose jealousy controls his actions.”
Cleveland, of Eva Road, Oldbury, pleaded guilty to two assaults and a breach of the suspended sentence.
He was jailed for five months for the assaults and a further seven months for the breach. The judge also banned him from contacting his partner for two years.
