A MAN has appeared in court accused of domestic abuse, including shoving his partner into a storage bed and trying to close it on top of her.
Paul Kevin Powell (38) is on trial in the Royal Court this week – he denies one domestic abuse charge, which relates to six alleged incidents.
To find him guilty of the charge, Jurats will have to determine that at least two of these incidents were true.
Crown Advocate Mike Preston, prosecuting, described the woman as “someone putting up with intolerable behaviour, staying with her abuser until finally summoning up the courage to say: enough is enough”.
The alleged victim, who was emotional giving evidence in court yesterday, described how Mr Powell would become violent and “a completely different person” after drinking.
“We spent every day together and it was nice, it was loving, it was caring. And then it changed,” she said. “He just drank too much, he was not nice.
“He just turned into a horrible person.”
For the first part of the week, she said, things were “great”. “And then, Wednesday onwards, I started getting nervous. Thursday I just knew the weekend was coming. And from Friday onwards, drinking and gambling was just a priority for him.”
The first of the six alleged incidents came after an evening at the pub, according to the woman, who said Mr Powell shoved her over the couch, pulled her hair and punched her side.
He left the property, she said, before coming back and going to get a bag out of the storage bed. The court heard that he shoved her, and she fell into the bed. He then allegedly tried to close the bed on top of her.
“He pushed it down and I was trying to push it off,” she said.
The altercation resulted in the police being called and Mr Powell was arrested. The couple separated for a short time but later got back together. The woman said that Mr Powell had apologised and this had been the first time something like this had happened.
She said she was “maybe naive, but I thought maybe there is something wrong, maybe he needed help; it was an accident, maybe he didn’t mean it”.
The court saw pictures of the woman’s bruises which she took a few days later.
Mr Powell also allegedly put his hands around the woman’s neck while whispering in her ear, hit her, insulted her, shoved her into the road and threatened to gamble away £500.
She said: “He was going to put £500 in this machine and gamble away his money and it was probably going to be my fault somehow.”
After the final alleged incident, the woman called a friend, who took a screenshot of one of her bruises and who encouraged her to leave the relationship.
She subsequently told Mr Powell to move out of the home. She also told the court how the relationship affected her wellbeing and her social life, and left her feeling that she was not allowed to be annoyed at normal issues.
“There were some things I didn’t want to bring up to him because it would set him off,” she explained.
The court also heard a 999 call made by a housemate, and watched body-worn footage of Mr Powell’s arrest.
The trial continues. The Bailiff, Sir Timothy Le Cocq, is presiding.
