‘Monster’ attacked ex-girlfriend
VICTIM TAKEN TO HOSPITAL AFTER FORMER PARTNER SMASHED DOWN A METAL POLE ON HER WRIST
A “monster” boyfriend fractured his ex-partner’s wrist after she found him drinking wine from a bottle in her garden in the middle of the night.
The mum, whose two young children were asleep in the house, was woken by stones being thrown at her window.
She looked outside and saw long-term ex Liam Cooperwaite, Newcastle Crown Court heard.
When she went out and told the 29-year-old to go away, he picked a metal pole from a bin and smashed it down on her arm, which she had raised to protect herself.
He then hit her on the leg with the pole and threw a child’s bike at her.
When the woman fled back inside, Cooperwaite smashed the living room window, put his head through the broken pane and warned: “I will kill you.”
Cooperwaite, who the woman said had been “aggressive and jealous” during their relationship, was arrested after worried neighbours called the police after hearing the victim crying out.
The woman was taken to hospital, where she was found to have a broken bone in her wrist.
Prosecutor Mark Guiliani told the court: “She describes the defendant as a ‘monster’. She is terrified. She doesn’t want him near her.”
Cooperwaite, of Emsworth Road, Carley Hill, Sunderland, admitted assault and criminal damage in relation to the attack in August.
He also pleaded guilty to common assault in relation to a confrontation where he threw beer cans at her in the street three weeks earlier, leaving her covered in alcohol.
Mr Recorder Simon Kealey QC sentenced Cooperwaite to 20 months’ imprisonment and a fiveyear restraining order to keep him away from the victim. The judge told him: “She describes you as a monster. She was terrified of you and wants nothing else to do with you.
“You were in her garden, she told you to go away. She raised her right arm and you struck her arm, fracturing her wrist.”
Cooperwaite accepts full responsibility for his actions and is “absolutely disgusted” by his behaviour.
The court heard he has had the “worst year of his life” due to death and health problems of close family members and had turned to drink and cocaine to cope, but is now determined to stay clean and out of trouble.