Controlling boyfriend used sleeping partner’s thumb to unlock phone
THUG ALSO BENT WOMAN’S FINGERS BACK AND BIT HER
A POSSESSIVE boyfriend has been convicted of psychological abuse after he used his sleeping girlfriend’s thumb to unlock her iPhone to check if she was dating other men.
Alexander Heavens, 24, waited until his unsuspecting partner had nodded off before using Touch ID technology she had on her device via her fingerprints to gain access to texts and emails. As the couple lay on her bed, Heavens placed her thumb print on the iPhone’s home button, checked her messages – then woke her up to interrogate her throughout the night as to who everyone was.
In the last year of their six-year relationship, Heavens, from Failsworth, near Oldham, would also demand the pin code on her phone to check her messages and during rows he bit her on the arm and bent her fingers back so far that she thought they might break.
At Manchester Crown Court, Heavens admitted engaging in controlling and coercive behaviour in an intimate relationship.
The court heard the couple’s relationship soured in Christmas 2016 after he suffered bouts of paranoia due to cocaine use.
Prosecutor Rob Smith said: “He started taking his anger out on her and was paranoid about her actions. The first incident in 2016, the defendant became angry because she was spending time with her family rather than him. They rowed about it and he kept arguing with her about it until he bit her and bruised her upper arm.
“After 2017, his behaviour worsened with her, particularly when he alleged that she had been with other men. During arguments, he began bending her fingers back so far that she thought they were going to break.
“When she was asleep he would grab her finger and use it to unlock her phone as it had her fingerprint ID code. He used this to check her phone messages and go through her contacts. He would wake her up and ask who everyone was and keep her up all night. Her work became affected and she became sleep-deprived. On one occasion she was going to sleep when he asked her a question about something on her phone, and when he didn’t get a reply he punched her in the face. She remembers being pushed to the kitchen floor, stood on and trampled on.”
He added that ‘whenever she said something he didn’t like, he punched her twice to the face.’
In a statement, his former girlfriend said ‘the whole relationship felt normal at the time, but I now realise it was not normal at all.’
Stuart Duke, defending, said: “The defendant accepts he is guilty of controlling behaviour. This was his first long term relationship. He accepts he behaved badly.”
Deferring sentence for six months, Judge Martin Rudland said: “The public needs to be aware that this sort of behaviour won’t be tolerated. This behaviour needs to be properly met with an appropriate sentence.”
Addressing Heavens he said: “Please be under no illusion, this is an extremely serious course of conduct. This course of conduct often takes place behind closed doors and is difficult to detect... I am going to defer your sentence, which means you can address your problems and you need to grasp those demons that come with them.’’
Heavens was banned from contacting his ex-girlfriend under the terms of a restraining order.