Monday 12 December 2011

Woman beat boyfriend with golf club after row in pub


A woman beat her partner with a golf club and wooden paddle then tried to cover up her attack by hiding him at a remote, derelict farmhouse, a court heard.

Laura Jones, 45, of Llanddewi Brefi, Ceredigion, west Wales, attacked her partner, Nathan Yates, after an acrimonious split in a pub. Her blows caused his skull to fracture.

The next day, rather than seeking medical attention, she drove Yates to the farmhouse and left him to survive on whisky, crisps and meals that she delivered.

Jones, who admitted grievous bodily harm, was given a 12-month jail term suspended for 24 months and ordered to do 200 hours of community work. Recorder Geraint Walters, the judge, also imposed a restraining order to stop Jones contacting Yates for three years.

Huw Rees, prosecuting, said that Jones and Yates, a former Daily Mirror journalist, had a "volatile relationship". "In particular, when she was drunk, she would turn into a nasty person," he told Swansea crown court on Friday.

The pair split up during an evening at a pub in Llanddewi Brefi in August last year, the court was told. But when Yates returned home later, he found Jones sitting on the bed. She picked up a paddle he had kept from his university days and assaulted him with it.

"She hit him many times with the paddle and jabbed him between the legs with it," Rees said. She eventually left the room and Yates went to sleep.

Rees said: "He woke up later when he felt something hit him on the left hand side of the head." The weapon was a metal golf club. Yates lost consciousness and woke the next morning with serious injuries, including a fractured skull, broken nose and bruising to the face, legs and back

The prosecutor said Yates was in a "bad way" but, rather than seeking medical help for him, Jones took him to a derelict farmhouse owned by her family.

She secured the door with bailing twine so that he could not get out and left him with crisps and whisky. She returned in subsequent days, bringing him pasta and beef stew. Yates was forced to sleep on a cold floor. There was no electricity in the farmhouse.

Yates was eventually found unconscious by his parents and taken to hospital.

Passing sentence, the judge said: "Whatever happened between you that night, there is no justification whatever for any person to take a weapon and strike another person in the face with it.

"I understand that what you did left Mr Yates in an awful state, where he worries about everyday life. You are very lucky that his injuries were not a lot more serious."

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