Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Cruel wife’s ceaseless campaign of hatred and abuse
A “devious” wife who repeatedly beat, controlled, and abused her husband until he was driven suicidal is now behind bars.
Tracy Hannington, 56, attacked Anthony Hannington with a hammer and knives and smashed him over the head with a tin of beans at the peak of the sustained abuse, which lasted four years.
And she has now been jailed for two years after admitting causing actual bodily harm and controlling and coercive behaviour. Canterbury Crown Court was told the pair had only known each other a month before marrying in the city’s register office in 2013, with Hannington’s abuse of her lorry driver husband starting soon after.
At first, she shouted at him for “being lazy” when he sat down and became angry when he socialised at the pub.
“She’d become aggressive and call him saying she didn’t want the marriage anymore, and threaten to throw his belongings at him,” prosecutor Bridget Todd told the court. Hannington soon locked her husband out of their Herne Bay home for speaking to neighbours as her jealousy intensified.
And if he wanted to see his brother, she would demand she also went.
Then, one New Year’s Eve, she called him and accused him of cheating, when he was in fact by himself and enjoying leisure time.
She threatened to burn down the flat over the telephone, prompting Mr Hannington to panic.
The violence started about a year into the marriage, Miss Todd added.
It began with punching, which was heard by neighbours who would separate them, prompting Hannington to learn to punch more quietly.
She would straddle her husband, striking his head, arms and body, and throw water over his bed, depriving him of sleep. Enraged, the abuser smashed up his possessions and pinned him against the wall, digging her nails into his neck.
“He didn’t want to retaliate, he’d let her calm down on her own,” Miss Todd continued, adding the violence would soon involve weapons. The barrister explained Hannington swung a claw-hammer at her husband, who brought up his hands to protect himself and waited for the blows to stop. On two occasions she held a knife to his throat, digging the blade into his neck.
Picture: Chris Davey
Hannington turned her attention to harnessing household objects as weapons as the violence snowballed.
Her frequent attacks included swinging a vacuum cleaner head into Anthony’s face, throwing tea cups and their contents, smashing aftershave bottles, and smacking him around the head with a tin of beans. The abuse, which started in 2015, came to a head in March this year after Tracy lunged at her husband’s stomach with a knife. He was able to parry away the blade but injured his hand.
The drama started with
Hannington shouting at her victim in their Collins Road home in Greenhill, near Herne Bay, for being lazy. She was holding a large kitchen knife, Miss Todd told the court.
She pushed it into his neck, then moved it away beore plunging the blade towards Mr Hannington’s stomach.
Af t e r b l o c k i n g t he attack he ran and locked himself in the bathroom, when he dared Tracy told him she wanted to kill him. Mr Hannington told the court their five-year marriage was “a ceaseless campaign of hatred and abuse”. Referring to a statement he made to police, Miss Todd told Judge Mark Weekes: “Before, he was happy going out but wouldn’t consider doing that now.
“He is ground down where he’s contemplated taking his own life and convinced himself the only way out is to end his own life.”
Miss Todd added: “She even says things like ‘why don’t you find a quiet corner somewhere and hang yourself’.” Kerry Waitt, mitigating, argued his client has “trust issues” and has since sought medical help for her behaviours, including anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications. “Sometimes people, in a state of anxiety, anger, do things they wouldn’t have thought possible,” he added. The barrister went on say Hannington “accepts the relationship is over” but had hopes it could be repaired. Hannington, now of of Sea Street in Herne Bay, pleaded guilty to the offences, which too place between 20015 and 2019, at a previous hearing. She could be seen sobbing throughout the sentencing before Judge Weekes jailed her for two years.
He also granted her husband the right to a restraining order, which typically last five years. Hannington told her children “I love you” while being led from the dock.