Woman feared she would die in ‘nasty and vicious’ attack by ex

VICTIM WHO WAS KICKED, PUNCHED, BITTEN AND SPAT ON SAID ‘I LOOKED LIKE THE ELEPHANT MAN’

A MAN beat up his ex-partner so badly she said her injuries made her feel like “the Elephant Man”.

James Owen (pictured right) assaulted Jessica Roberts in Holyhead.

Owen thought she was seeing someone else but Ms Roberts said her relationship with Owen was over. Owen, 34, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Branding it a “nasty and vicious” incident, a judge at Mold Crown Court jailed him for 16 months. Prosecutor Suzanne Payne told the court that Owen and Ms Roberts had been in a relationship until February this year.

On February 26, they had been on separate nights out and Ms Roberts saw Owen in a bar. They argued and later he sent text messages. He said he had heard about her and another man. Owen texted her with the message: “You’re f ****** now”.

Ms Roberts replied that it was he (Owen) who had left her. He later sent a message: “Blocking you now so I can think about revenge. It might be next week, next month but something happens,” the court heard.

However the prosecutor said that the following day, February 27, the defendant asked to meet Ms Roberts near Mill Bank Stores in Holyhead.

She “reluctantly” did so, but once she got there, he accused her of sleeping with someone else.

He spat in her face then on her mouth and nose, punched her and put her in a headlock.

He called that “his move” as it wouldn’t “leave marks”.

She was thrown to the ground and he kicked her left eye and head. He also bit her left ear, ripping the cartilage and earring. Her hands were left covered in blood.

Prosecutor Ms Payne said: “She thought the defendant was going to kill her. She had never been so scared in her life.”

But the court heard Owen didn’t want her friend or his own mother to see her injuries. So they went to his brother’s flat.

Eventually, she went to Ysbyty Gwynedd for treatment, including five stitches to her eye wound. Police were called and Owen was arrested.

He told officers he and Ms Roberts had been engaged and the injuries were caused by someone else.

In a victim statement, Ms Roberts told the court a doctor in the hospital told her she would have a scar from her eye injury.

She said: “I looked like the Elephant Man – it was all swollen. A little boy asked his mum ‘what’s wrong with her face?’ “

Anna Pope, defending, said her client had had a “tragic upbringing”.

He had been “encouraged to fight his brother for the pleasure of a parent”.

This was not, however, an excuse for his behaviour.

He is remorseful and accepts he has “anger management problems”. But the judge, Recorder Neil Owencasey, told the defendant, of Mynydd y Ddraig, Holyhead, it had been a “nasty and vicious” assault against his victim and the jail term reflects the gravity of the offence.

He also issued an indefinite restraining order prohibiting Owen from contacting Ms Roberts directly or indirectly.

Owen was also given concurrent, four-week jail terms for each of four counts of sending a malicious communication, by text message.

They also run concurrently to the main 16-month sentence.