A violent and abusive woman has been jailed for four years after she made her terrified husband’s life a complete misery by sadistically assaulting, threatening and humiliating him during a ‘shocking’ 20-year campaign of terror.
Heavy-drinking mother-of-three Sheree Spencer punched, kicked, slapped, bit and ragged her husband around during persistent ‘nasty’ attacks which left him feeling trapped and fearful.
Spencer, 45, of Beals Close, Market Weighton, admitted coercive and controlling behaviour between January 2016 and June 2021 and three offences of assaulting her husband, causing actual bodily harm, between January and April 2020.
She viciously hit him with a wine bottle, leaving him disfigured with a ‘cauliflower ear’ and a chipped elbow, Hull Crown Court heard.
Sometimes she drank three bottles of wine a day during the appalling ‘catalogue’ of abuse.
Michele Stuart-Lofthouse, prosecuting, said that the couple had been together since 2000 and lived in Bubwith, near Selby, at the time. They had three young children.
Spencer’s violent behaviour towards her husband came to light after police were alerted because of concerns.
Her behaviour was said to have changed when they were living in London, where she began to push and slap her husband and became very aggressive.
Some of her actions included spitting at her husband, grabbing him by the throat and on one occasion hitting him on the back of the head with a wine glass, causing an injury which required stitching.
The husband handed over 43 photographs of injuries, 36 video clips and nine mobile phone recordings to the police.
The assaults included kicking, punching, hitting, biting and spitting at him and she regularly hurled insults towards her husband.
She also damaged his property, including laptops, phones, clothes and household items.
Spencer’s ‘unpredictable and threatening’ behaviour caused her husband to become estranged from his family.
A neighbour says they heard abusive language regularly being used by Spencer towards him.
During one recording, she could be heard saying: ‘You’re not a f***ing man. I want you out of my life.’
In one incident, she damaged a tyre on his car using a kitchen knife and later lunged at him with the knife, causing a 2cm cut below his knee.
Her husband said in a statement that he read to the court that he had suffered 20 years of physical and mental abuse that was damaging. He feared that he would never fully recover from the abuse and he felt that he had to hide it from friends and family.
He complied with her demands and she controlled all aspects of his daily life, including which room he could sleep in and which toilet he could use.
‘She threatened to make false allegations to me to the police,’ he said. He felt ‘trapped’ and ‘feared the consequences of speaking out,’ which caused him to become numb to the abuse.
Spencer’s husband said that, after she was arrested, the problems continued during Family Court hearings through her claiming that she was the victim and by using character assassination against him.
He had to defend himself against allegations. ‘She continued to exert her control over me,’ he said. She was ‘unnecessarily obstructive’ and it was three months before she would allow the family home to be sold.
Defence barrister Richard Pratt KC said that there was ‘little if anything’ that could be said in mitigation. ‘It’s a shocking, distressing case,’ said Mr Pratt.
Judge Kate Rayfield said that Spencer had a ‘short temper’ and was controlling and coercive to her ‘vulnerable’ husband, who was the victim of her outbursts for many years.
Two hours of recorded incidents had been compiled and it ‘could not be overstated how shocking’ it was.
The filmed or recorded incidents revealed ‘persistent, nasty physical and emotional abuse’ on a frequent basis, sometimes several times in a day.
Spencer threatened and assaulted her husband to the point he ‘cowered sometimes on his hands and knees on the floor’.
The court heard how Spencer showed ‘utter contempt for him’ and sometimes ‘whispered in his face in the most sinister way’ as well as shouting orders at her husband.
‘You have caused him significant psychological harm,’ said Judge Rayfield. ‘There is a history of violence and abuse against the same victim.’
Spencer was given an indefinite restraining order. She grinned as she left the dock to be taken down to the cells.
from News – Metro https://ift.tt/2bWafGc
0 Comments