Jailed: ‘Controlling’ man set ex-girlfriend’s hair on fire:
UNIVERSITY STUDENT SENT TO PRISON
A BANGOR University student has been locked up for controlling his ex-girlfriend for a year.
Over a 12-month period, Duan Wang punched his former partner in the face as she tried to study, set her hair alight and held scissors to her throat after she studied with another man.
Mold Crown Court heard he also ripped a page from her passport, bit her a number of times and deprived her of sleep by making her stand by the bed.
Wang, 22, of Farrar Road, Bangor, told her to text him every five minutes to report what she was doing and, on occasions, would refuse to let her leave the house and deter her from getting higher grades than him.
Following a three-day trial at Mold Crown Court in January, a jury found him guilty of the offences and he was yesterday sentenced to two and a half years behind bars.
Judge Nicola Jones said: “Your conduct was intended to humiliate and degrade her.”
Prosecuting barrister Myles Wilson said that, a few months into the relationship in February 2018, the defendant became “jealous and controlling”.
In a victim impact statement Mr Wilson read out to the court, the victim said: “I no longer feel happy and I no longer smile as much.
“I felt confident to do what I wanted before I met him. But I stopped going to do my own thing because he wouldn’t let me, or would make it difficult for me.
“He would stop me from becoming a better person.
“Everything that was important to me, he would make me stop it.”
She said she had to “let her friends go” and that she would often become emotional because she’d been deprived of sleep.
She claimed this affected her chance of a scholarship, which she did not end up getting.
“My parents have to work very hard to pay for my studies here and because I didn’t get the scholarship, my family and I have to pay more,” she said.
She also said she felt afraid to begin a new relationship.
“I will remember what he has done for me for the rest of my life,” she said.
Defence counsel Duncan Bould said his client accepted the custody threshold had been crossed and that Wang regretted his behaviour and was “ashamed”.
Mr Bould said Wang had spent the past 17 months “working hard” to get his degree while awaiting trial, and had “done very positive things”.
There has been no further criminal behaviour, and he argued there was no risk of him doing anything further to the victim.
Mr Bould said custody would “destroy his aspirations” and urged the judge to consider suspending the sentence.
He said: “At times, he treated her badly and did assault her, but ... she didn’t need treatment.
“In that deteriorating period, she was treated badly by a person who was grossly immature for his years.”
Judge Jones took into the account the effect upon serving prisoners during the Covid-19 pandemic and imposed the shortest sentence possible.
She also took into consideration mitigating factors including Wang’s previous good character and that he had no previous convictions.