‘Spiritual’ office worker made threats with knife
A ‘SPIRITUAL’ university graduate with a love of Buddhism threatened his girlfriend at knifepoint during a row about him getting a nine-to-five job, shouting: ‘Don’t f ***** g test me.’
Ryan Boyce, 27, lost his temper at his partner after she questioned him about his role at a marketing firm, claiming his appointment as a manager had made him ‘dismissive’ and ‘angry.’
During a row, Boyce – who said he wanted to live ‘off grid’ – grabbed a kitchen knife and brandished it at the woman, telling her: “Don’t f ***** g test me or I will do something.”
The terrified woman ran into the street barefoot, wearing only a dressing grown, before calling the police.
Officers attended the woman’s dad’s house in Heaton Chapel, Stockport.
She said: “We had a conversation about how Ryan is a very spiritual man, and likes his Hinduism and Buddhism, wants to be ‘off grid’ and not be in society.
“I was talking about his work changing him as a person. It is making him not be the person I fell in love with and is making him more aggressive, more in your face and angry. He’s normally a very calm and collected person, he’s very much into his Buddhism.
“I noticed that his behaviour was changing with the work that he was in.”
At Stockport magistrates’ court, Bolton University graduate Boyce, who lives in Hulme, was convicted of common assault.
The court earlier heard the couple were together for eight years, but began drifting apart after finishing their university studies.
Boyce began working for a digital marketing firm in Manchester city centre. It is thought he had previously begun following Buddhism following a trip to Sri Lanka.
The incident happened on March 3 last year.
She wept as she told magistrates: “I was trying to find out what Ryan’s job was, because as far as I could understand he had gone from wanting to be a physiotherapist to working in an office.
“He was just very dismissive, would just look at me and say things like ‘you wouldn’t understand what I do’ and would then just look away.
“I just wanted to ask him why his behaviour had changed, why he was so dismissive towards me, but he couldn’t seem to look me in the face and have a conversation.
“At that point I started to get upset and he was getting very fidgety. As I was talking Ryan got up and I heard the rattling of the kitchen draw. As I turned around that is when he took the knife out.
“He said ‘don’t f ****** test me or I will do something.’
“He was holding the knife at chest height and he shouted at me not to ‘f ***** g push him.’ I just ran out of the door and I rang the police, and I just sat on the pavement.”
Boyce denied threatening the woman, claiming he had gone into the kitchen to cook food.
He will be sentenced later this month.