Care worker Elliot Jones (22) ‘petrified’ his partner of three years to the point she considered jumping out of the bathroom window and called the defendant’s brother for help, the Royal Court heard yesterday.
The victim had hidden inside after the couple, who have a sixteen-month-old child together, returned from a night out together on Saturday 9 May.
Crown Advocate Emma Hollywood told the court that Jones and the defendant had engaged in sexual intercourse but stopped consensually. The victim then ‘pushed’ the defendant off her and ran to the bathroom. She later told police ‘she thought she was going to die’.
The court acknowledged that there was no explanation as to why the then 21-year-old victim, who had bought the sword for Jones as a present, reacted in such a way.
After she ran to the bathroom Jones told her he was coming in to get her before he began hacking at the door with the sword, first with the cover on and then with blade unsheathed, while the victim screamed for help out of the window. The couple’s child was not in the house at the time.
Advocate James Bell, defending, said his client, who had been drinking, was extremely remorseful for his actions and had not caused any physical harm to the victim.
‘His aim was to get into the bathroom out of concern for his girlfriend’s welfare but he accepts that using a large implement to gain entry was misguided,’ he said.
Jones pleaded guilty to one count of grave and criminal assault. He was sentenced to 180 hours’ community service and 12 months probation. The court ordered that the sword be destroyed.
Delivering the sentence Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith said the court did not take offences involving a weapon lightly.
Jurats Suzanne Marett-Crosby and RozanneThomas were sitting.
