Thug fractured woman’s eye socket with ashtray
ATHUG who hurled a heavy glass ashtray at a woman’s face during an argument so hard that it broke in half - and fractured her eye socket has been jailed.
Darren Wood strangled and punched another woman in the face in a separate attack.
Police described Wood, 42, as ‘a significant threat to these women’ as he started a jail sentence of threeand-a-half years.
He was found guilty by a jury after a trial at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm.
Wood pleaded guilty to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm at an earlier hearing.
Police said the ashtray was thrown so hard that it split in two as it hit the woman’s face.
Wood, of Meldreth Drive, Longsight, told her it was only a ‘small cut’ and they could fix it with ‘makeshift butterfly stitches’.
Detective Constable Russell Clarke, of Rochdale CID, said: “This kind of violence will not be tolerated in Greater Manchester.
“Everyone has the right to go about their lives without the fear of being subjected to harm.”
In late March last year, Wood strangled and punched a woman in her 50s several times in the face.
That was the incident over which he was charged with ABH.
Later that year, in December, he became involved in an argument with another woman, aged in her 30s, at a house on Halifax Road in Rochdale, which police said started over the first attack.
A GMP spokesman said: “Wood grabbed a heavy ashtray and threw it at the woman - which broke in two as it hit her face - leaving her with a fractured eye socket and severe bruising to her face.
“Despite the severity of her injuries, Wood told her it was only a small cut and they could fix it with makeshift butterfly stitches.
“The following morning he was arrested but continued to deny the offences.”
Det Con Clarke added: “I am extremely grateful to the jury for seeing through his lies.
“There is no doubt that Wood was a significant threat to these women and he will now spend the next threeand-a-half years behind bars thinking about his actions.”
Police said both women went on to make full recoveries.