Dumped ex thumps doctor outside home he shares with nurse
A CONSULTANT anaesthetist was almost knocked to the ground when his ex-wife punched him in the head outside the home he shares with the nurse he left her for.
Anthony Doyle said Vicki Doyle left him reeling when she struck him following a row on his doorstep, during which he called her a ‘psychopath’.
The altercation happened after Mrs Doyle, 53, an NHS administrator and director of a property management firm, took their daughter to see him after he and the teenager had argued on the phone.
She got out of the car when her daughter became upset as she was speaking to her father outside the house where he lives with his new, younger partner, Sarah Williams.
Mrs Doyle was arrested and charged with assault by beating after Miss Williams called the police. She has now received a suspended sentence following a trial.
Mr Doyle, 60, told the court: ‘My daughter was actually walking away and the next thing I knew I felt a punch on my right cheek. It nearly knocked me over and was with a clenched fist.
‘I fell back and felt shocked and surprised.
‘I was not expecting it. There was physical pain but no lasting injuries and no medical attention was needed.’
Miss Williams, who is in her thirties, admitted she hadn’t seen the attack. She told the court: ‘I heard a bit of a commotion and then a loud thud. I opened the door and Tony said he’d been assaulted and to call the police, which I did.’
Mr Doyle confirmed the marriage ended because of his affair, explaining that his relationship with Miss Williams began two years ago.
He and his wife met in the mid-1990s, had been married for 20 years and had two children together.
Both are listed in official records as having run Dorset Property Services from 2007, although Mr Doyle stepped down as company secretary in November last year. The
‘I was not expecting it’
attack on the consultant, who works at Dorset County hospital in Dorchester, happened on January 9 at his £420,000 semidetached home in the picturesque Dorset village of Bradford Peverell.
Prosecutor harrison Wilson told Poole Magistrates’ Court: ‘Mr Doyle was at home with his partner Sarah Williams and had been on the phone to his daughter. Following that, she and the defendant arrived at the address.
‘he invited his daughter in but things got heated.
‘he made comments [to Mrs Doyle] along the lines of “You’re behaving like a psychopath”. at this point the Crown says the defendant hit her ex-partner once to the side of the face.’
Mrs Doyle, of Poundbury, Dorset, admitted ‘lashing out’ but claimed she felt under attack from the verbal abuse.
‘I lashed out to protect my little girl and myself,’ she said. ‘People can harm you with more than fists and that is something that the legal system should take into account.’
Magistrates found her guilty after a two-hour trial. She was given a 12-month suspended sentence and a year-long restraining order banning contact with Mr Doyle.