Businessman beat up his ex after downing 6 glasses of port in rugby club initiation
A BUSINESSMAN beat up the mother of his two children in a drunken rage after knocking back six glasses of port to complete a rugby club initiation ceremony.
James Hume, 29, grabbed Stephanie Teague by the throat and choked her after she asked him why a woman had approached her in bar claiming to have had a fling with him.
He also hit his 28-year-old estranged partner in the face twice, a court heard.
Police were called to the couple’s-five bedroom property, a former estate lodge in the wealthy village of Henbury, Cheshire, after she fled it telling Hume: ‘ Do you want to show our children what you do to their mum?’
The privately-educated company director, who runs a business renting ‘inflatable pubs’ for weddings and parties and also runs a bar, was arrested and later admitted: ‘I am ashamed of what I did.’
It emerged that he had kicked Miss Teague’s thigh during another tiff days earlier, causing bruising.
Magistrates in Stockport were told the couple who had been in a relationship since their late teens, had two children, aged six and one, but had split up in August. It is thought that despite the breakup they continued living under the same roof in the hope of ‘trying to work it out.’
The first incident happened on November 26 when Miss Teague decided to take the children to her mother’s house following an argument. Prosecutor Tess Kenyon said the second incident happened last Sunday after Hume spent the afternoon drinking with friends as part of a rugby club initiation. ‘The couple were planning on going out together to see her friend who sang in a bar,’ she said. ‘He was drunk from the previous event and carried on drinking.
‘A female came up to Miss Teague in the bar and said that she had been sleeping with him. She walked home and he followed her.’
Hume grabbed Miss Teague by the throat and began squeezing until she could not breathe. Miss Kenyon said: ‘She tried to get him to let go as she was in fear of her life. He hit her in the face two times. She ran out of the house.’
Hume told the court: ‘ At the weekend I started at a new rugby club and part of the initiation was to drink six shots of port.
‘We were playing drinking games, something I don’t do, and I don’t even remember getting to the bar at 9pm. We started drinking at 4pm so it was a long time.’
He said their children had not heard the ensuing row.
His lawyer, Shirley Fitton, said: ‘This was a very volatile relationship. They have remained amicable and hope to reconcile.’
Hume, who admitted common assault, was ordered to complete a two-year community order, carry out 150 hours’ unpaid work and pay £170 court costs.