Man threatened to kill wife and bury her in garden

A MAN was handed a threemonth jail sentence for threatening to kill his wife and dog and “bury them in the garden”.

However, with time already spent in custody on remand, Richard McCorgary, who turned 54 yesterday, will be freed from prison, Newtownards Magistrates Court heard.

Defence counsel Paul McAlinden told the court that McCorgary, with an address at Clandeboye Place in Bangor, “will be on a flight” back to Malta imminently.

Appearing at court via videolink, McCorgary pleaded guilty to four charges, common assault of his wife Jacqueline McCorgary, damaging her phone, threatening to kill her and causing unnecessary suffering to her Staffordshire dog on May 24 this year.

The court heard that in an argument over flights being booked, he pushed her and the nine-month-old dog off a bed before “grabbing the dog by the collar and throwing it down the stairs”.

When his wife went to check on the pup, he threatened that he would “smash her face in”, kill them both and “bury them in the back garden where no one would find them”, before storming from the house.

Mrs McCorgary discovered later that her phone had been broken after it was thrown against a wall.

Arrested and questioned by police, McCorgary claimed the allegations were “a complete fabrication”.

Mr McAlinden told the court the relationship was at an end and that the defendant intended to go back to Malta where he lives with his mother.

Deputy District Judge Rea said he was satisfied the custody threshold had been passed.

He imposed a six-week sentence for the new offence, adding on a further six weeks for McCorgary breaching an earlier suspended sentence when he assaulted the same victim three months before the May incident.