‘Help me now’: Woman asked police to step in over cheating bully boyfriend
CONTROLLING PARTNER KICKED WOMAN
A CHEATING bully who was secretly seeing another woman and regularly made his frightened girlfriend ask permission to have a bath and to use the internet, brutally punched, kicked and dragged her around.
Controlling and obsessive Nicholas Rea told her she was not leaving after she packed her bags and said that she wanted to go because she had found out about him having the secret affair.
But he had since married the other woman that he had been dating and she had warned him that this was his “last chance” and that there were “no chances after this” if he “messes this up”, Hull Crown Court heard.
Rea, 38, formerly of Richmond Street, Bridlington, admitted assaulting the woman, causing actual bodily harm, and assaulting her on May 11 last year.
Richard Thompson, prosecuting, said that Rea showed controlling behaviour towards his girlfriend, including restricting her use of the internet unless he gave her permission, having to ask permission from him to have a bath and monitoring her movements through using a door bell camera.
She confided in a neighbour and had been left “anxious and shaking” from his behaviour and wanted to end the relationship and leave him that night. She packed her bags.
Rea pushed the woman when he saw her in the street, causing her to stumble, and he dragged her back to the Bridlington house and told her she wasn’t leaving.
She told him: “I want to leave” but he said: “No, you’re not leaving. Get home.”
Police attended and the anxious woman mouthed to them: “Help me now” before putting on a smile.
While she was later sitting on a sofa, Rea hit her across the head, kicked her in the mouth, causing a split lip, and dragged her around the room by her hair.
Rea had been having a relationship with another woman at the time behind his girlfriend’s back and she was now his wife.
The girlfriend had, at the time, recently found out about it.
The woman, now 28, said in a statement that Rea’s behaviour had badly affected her.
“I am now easily startled and and all of this has changed me as a person,” she said.
She suffered from nightmares, panic attacks and flashbacks and had not been eating properly. Rea had a previous conviction for dishonesty.
Nigel Clive, mitigating, said that Rea had been suffering from problems at the time that needed tackling and he had done that.
“It was thoroughly shameful and persistent behaviour that this defendant demonstrated,” said Mr Clive.
The offences were committed against the “backdrop of an unhappy relationship to which he will not return”.
Rea married his wife, Naomi, whom he had been secretly seeing at the time of the offences, in August last year.
Naomi Rea, 30, a barmaid, told the court in support of her husband that she had been “mortified” by his behaviour.
“It did take me a long time to kind of get my head round it,” she said.
“He was short-tempered before. He seems a lot calmer now.
“He will talk through a lot of things more now. He seems to be getting a lot better at communicating and talking about how he feels and stuff like that so he is not as stressed out.
“He was, at the time, controlling with me and then we sorted it out.
“Sometimes, he doesn’t realise what he is doing until you point it out.
“Before, we would argue about stuff and wouldn’t talk for two or three days. Now, we talk about it. It’s like he has grown up.
“He has realised that you can’t behave like that. I am quite outspoken to him and say ‘No, you can’t do that.’
“It took a while to sink in. He is a lot different.
“He had a job as a delivery driver. He has been looking for a full-time job in Bolton.
“I have told him that if anything happens, that will be it.
“I have told him that this is his last chance. There are no chances after this. If he messes this up, that is it.”
Judge Mark Bury told her: “You have taken a big gamble. You have invested a lot in this relationship.”
He told Mr Rea in relation to the assaults: “I hope you are ashamed of yourself. You appear to have undergone a sea change.
“You need to remember how inappropriately you have behaved in the past to people you are in a relationship with and make sure it remains in the past.
“Naomi doesn’t strike me as someone who can be messed around. This is the first day of the rest of your life.
“Regard yourself as lucky and don’t blow the chance you have been given by the court or with your family.”
Rea was given 150 hours’ unpaid work and must do a Building Better Relationships course.
He was given a two-year restraining order. He was spared prison mainly because he had previously spent 27 days in custody on remand and 183 days on a curfew, which would have counted against a prison sentence.
It did take me a long time to kind of get my head round it. He was short-tempered before. He seems a lot calmer now. He will talk through a lot of things more now
Naomi Rea