A WOMAN has claimed that her former partner left her with bruises across her body– and a shoe-print on her back – following a violent assault.
The woman was giving evidence on the first day of a trial in the Royal Court of 30-year-old Addison Mazurke. He denies a charge of grave and criminal assault.
Crown Advocate Luke Sette, prosecuting, told the court that the couple had had an on-off “turbulent relationship, characterised by jealousy, paranoia and constant questions about whether the woman had been unfaithful”.
“It became abusive and coercive, and he was violent as well,” Advocate Sette added.
He said that on 18 May last year Mr Mazurke had come into the bathroom while the alleged victim was in the bath and taken her phone.
She got out of the bath to try to grab it back and in the struggle he kicked her in the back, leaving the imprint of one of his trainers, the court heard.
The jury of eight men and four women were shown a photo of the bruise.
The Crown Advocate asked them: “If she had simply slipped and fallen, why would she have told her friend and why would she have been photographed?”
And he asked the alleged victim: “Are you making this up to get back at him?”
She replied: “Definitely not. I don’t need to do that.”
He also asked her why she had sent Mr Mazurke the photos of her injuries.
She said: “Just to make him aware of what he had done.”
Two days after the alleged assault, the court heard Mr Mazurke sent the woman a message calling her “a toxic slut” and Advocate Sette asked why they had later got back together.
She said: “He would make threats. I felt I had no option but to be with him.”
However, Advocate Stephen Wauchope, defending, asked her about an incident a month before the alleged assault, in which she is said to have hit Mr Mazurke in the head with a metal herb grinder during an alleged assault.
She said: “He had pinned me down on the bed. I couldn’t move.”
The trial is expected to conclude tomorrow.
Commissioner Alan Binnington is presiding.
