Woman tells of ‘brutal’ partner

A woman described to a jury yesterday the catalogue of physical and mental abuse inflicted on her by her husband at their cottage in the Highlands and how she feared for her life.

Marie Islam ,47, claimed that she was regularly assaulted by Konstanty Bembnista, whom she described as “violent, volatile and brutal".

She also told the court at Wick on the second day of Bembnista’s trial, of the veiled threatmade by him more than once, and said: “He remarked that you could kill someone up here and no one would bother you about it.”

Mrs Islam told of one incident in which Glasgow-born Bembnista hit her over her head with a heavy cigarette box and dragged her across the living room floor of their home at Abbotswood Cottage in the Caithness

“He said you could kill someone up here”

village of Lybster. They made their home there after moving north from the central belt.

Their two dogs were hysterical and bit her legs, which became covered in blood. When she insisted on going to the doctor to get a tetanus jab, her husband made her lie and say she had been attacked by a stray dog.

Bembnista, 68, pleads not guilty on indictment to twocharges of assault, breach of the peace and of stalking Mrs Islam in Edinburgh. The incidents are alleged to have occurred at Abbotswood Cottage and in Edinburgh between June 1991 and July 2013.

Mrs Islam said that Bembnista, now living inThrumster, was prone to making provocative and “disgusting” comments about her parents to try to get her angry.

When she reacted he would throw something at her.