Man beat and bit his lover at hotel
AMAN beat and “clawed” his partner and bit her on the face during an alcohol-fuelled attack in a hotel room, a court has heard.
The alarm was raised by guests in the neighbouring room who heard the woman’s screams for help.
Swansea Crown Court heard Ryan Games had become drunk and abusive during a weekend break in Swansea, and after falling asleep on the toilet of his hotel room had attacked his partner of 20 years by punching, kicking, clawing, and biting her.
A judge said alcohol was Games’ “Achilles’ heel” and as part of a rehabilitation programme ordered him to wear an electronic alcohol abstinence monitoring tag for the next 90 days.
Craig Jones, prosecuting, said the assault took place on the weekend of February 3 and 4 this year after the couple had come to Swansea for a break. He said Games and his longterm partner went out to eat and watch rugby in the city centre, and initially there were no difficulties between them.
However, during the evening the defendant’s demeanour changed and he became verbally abusive, accusing his partner of cheating on him. The pair eventually returned to their room in the Dragon Hotel, in The Kingsway, where 38-year-old Games fell asleep on the toilet.
The court heard the woman left Games in the bathroom and went for a walk, and when she came back the defendant woke up and began verbally abusing her and calling her a “s**g”.
Games grabbed the woman by the hair and pulled her to the floor, where he kicked and punched her and “clawed” at her face before biting her on the face. The prosecutor said the woman’s cries were heard by the people in the neighbouring hotel room, who alerted reception.
When hotel staff went to the room Games answered their knocks on the door, and told them “it was just a domestic” – but behind him in the room the staff could see his partner was “hysterical”. The woman forced her way out of the room and collapsed in the hallway crying. Police were called and Games was arrested,
The court heard that in his police interview the defendant claimed his partner had been “goading” him. He accepted pushing his partner, causing her to fall over the bath, but said he had been acting in self-defence and denied any unlawful assault.
In an impact statement read to the court by the prosecutor the woman said the experience had increased her anxiety levels and left her struggling to sleep and reliving the incident.
Games, of Sunny View, Pontlottyn, Rhymney, had previously pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has one previous conviction for driving with excess alcohol.
Dean Pulling, for Games, accepted the assault must have been a “frightening and unpleasant experience, to say the least” for the victim and said the defendant “did little to cover himself in glory”.
He said his client recognised he had a problem with alcohol but had been alcohol-free for the last two months while on remand in prison and wished to remain that way.
The barrister said Games held a responsible job as senior manufacturing manager at a pharmaceutical firm in Tredegar, adding: “It is in him to lead a law-abiding life.”
Judge Paul Thomas KC said “not for the first time” the defendant had consumed too much alcohol and this had caused him to become aggressive and violent towards his partner of some 20 years. He described alcohol as
Games’ “Achilles’ heel”.
The judge said it was the woman’s cries which had alerted a fellow hotel guest to what was going on, and said he suspected that had that not happened the defendant would have subjected his partner to an even worse beating. With a one-quarter discount for his guilty plea Games was sentenced to 15 months in prison suspended for 18 months and was ordered to complete a rehabilitation course and to abide by an electronically monitored alcohol abstinence requirement for the next 90 days.