Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘BABY DROPPED DURING BID TO CHOKE MUM BY ACCUSED’
Dad denied bail after drunken ‘attack’
A BABY was dropped to the ground during an alleged attempt to choke her mother, the High Court heard yesterday.
Patrick Sherry, 28, who is said to be trained in mixed martial arts, is accused of a drunken assault on his partner as she held their seven-month-old daughter last Sunday.
The defendant, of Tully Manor in Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone, faces charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, attempted choking with intent, cruelty to a child and threats to kill.
Sherry reportedly became violent after returning home drunk as the woman was changing the baby’s nappy. A prosecutor claimed he started to punch his partner amid a row about asking her to go to the pub.
It’s alleged he put her against a hall door, placed his hands round her neck and said he was going to kill her.
She claimed she couldn’t breathe and their daughter then fell from her arms. Police called to the home found smashed and overturned furniture.
The woman’s injuries included a swollen forehead and bruising to her neck. A large clump of dark hair was discovered on the hallway floor. Sherry was arrested the following day and told police he drunk up to 15 bottles of beer before the alleged attack.
He denied threatening to kill his partner or having any contact with their baby, claiming she was in a car seat throughout the entire incident.
According to his account he grabbed the woman by the throat for 10 to 15 seconds after she threw a vase at him.
A defence barrister questioned the admissibility of anything Sherry said in police interviews, highlighting the amount of alcohol taken. Refusing bail, however, Mr Justice Colton said: “Attempted choking is very sinister in the context of domestic violence.”