Kill threat in insurance phone call

record for domestic violence. He said: “From the evidence it’s quite clear that you are a controlling bully, and no sentence other than custody is appropriate.”

A jury unanimously found him guilty following a six-day trial last month of assaulting Miss Maguire between October 2013 and April 2017 and his previous partner Sarah Burns between May 2008 and August 2013.

In the case of Miss Maguire, he had originally been charged with attempted murder.

The court heard he rammed her with his Ford Fiesta, punched and kicked her, seized her by the throat, and cut her arms with a knife.

Miss Maguire, now 23, said: “I thought I was going to die.”

She said in evidence: “If he didn’t get sex every day or whatever he wanted he’d get angry. He said I was a waste of space and useless.

“He started punching me to the back of my head and my legs. He was good at being able to aim at places folk wouldn’t be able to see.”

She said the incident in the woods, near Stirling, happened after she had been with McPhee for nearly two years. She said: “We were out for a drive and he parked up in the woods. He tried to make a move in the car to have sex and I didn’t want to. He dragged me out the passenger side and I ended up on the ground.

“He was punching me all over my head, my body, my legs, and kicking me all over my body. I was begging him to stop.”

He then drove off and left Naomi in the woods at 10pm on a cold night with no phone and no idea where she was for over an hour before going back for her.

On another occasion, when she was late out of work and he was picking her up, he flew into a rage in the car and punched her in the face, making her nose bleed. He claimed her face had “collided with his hand”.

She finally left McPhee, an unemployed panel beater, after he lost his temper when she woke him up as she tried to creep out of their bedroom one morning in April 2017 to go to work.

He slashed at her arms five times with a kitchen knife he kept near their bed before she fled in bare feet.

Colleagues from the nursing home she worked picked her up, battered, cut, and bruised, and persuaded her to go to the police.

The court heard he had taken up with Naomi after splitting from his partner of over five years, Sarah Burns, whom he also abused after becoming jealous of her horse.

Miss Burns, now a 31 year-old mother-of-three, said he had grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against a cupboard in their bedroom in Bonnybridge.

She said: “He didn’t like the attention I used to give the horse.”

She eventually had to give up the horse, because his behaviour meant she wasn’t able to ride it enough to keep it competition fit.

Later, while she was heavily pregnant, McPhee straddled her belly, punching her on the head, leaving her in tears, and after she had eventually left him, he stopped his car beside her, got out, and emptied a litre of Volvic spring water over her head because she refused to get in.

McPhee had denied all the offences, and said of Miss Maguire: “I treated her like a princess.”

His lawyer Hazel McGuiness said: “It’s clear he has difficulties with sexual jealousy, anger management, and impulsivity.”

McPhee, who was also made subject to a nonharrassment order in respect of both his victims, turned open-mouthed to his mother on the public benches as the jail sentence was pronounced.

He later showed no emotion as he was handcuffed to a guard and led to the cells.

Detective Sergeant Mark Kane of Police Scotland’s domestic abuse taskforce said following the sentence: “Police Scotland is wholly committed to investigating all cases of domestic abuse that are reported and we will continue to work alongside our partners at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in order to bring relevant offenders to justice.

“Tackling domestic abuse is a priority for Police Scotland, we want to encourage people to come forward. Victims of crime can be confident that we will listen to them and investigate their report thoroughly, no matter how much time has passed.” A man drunkenly threatened to murder his estranged wife while on the phone to a call handler at Prudential.

John Grana (55) appeared at Stirling Sheriff Court for sentencing this week after behaving in a threatening and abusive manner during the telephone conversation on the morning of July 26 last year.

The court heard how the accused and his ex-wife had an insurance policy with Prudential – and at around 11.30am on the day in question, a Wednesday, he phoned up the Craigforth office to ask why he had not been paid his portion of the money.

He made a series of remarks to the call-handler before saying ‘if this isn’t resolved by Friday I’m going to f ****** kill her and it’s your fault’.

The following day Grana’s estranged wife phoned Prudential and said she was happy for the money to be released to him.

The phone call made by the accused was later listened to by staff at the insurance firm and police were contacted.

Defence solicitor Virgil Crawford said: “He and his wife were separated but there was this policy in their name. The sum went into four-figures and it was agreed between Mr Grana and his wife that it would be surrendered to him.

“He was anxious to recover his money and contacted Prudential by phone. He accepts he became annoyed. He was under the influence of alcohol when he made the call.

“He later spoke to his wife, who then spoke to Prudential and sorted it out.

“The accused did make the comments but he had no intention of carrying them out, and there have been no further issues with either his wife or Prudential.”

Sheriff Pino Di Emidio said: “People working at Prudential are entitled to go about their work without abuse. You may have been frustrated but you accept you had gone too far.”

Grana, of Mallaig Road, Port Glasgow, was ordered to undertake 80 hours of unpaid work in the next six months.