Woman ‘smashed mirror over her boyfriend’s head’
Ayoung woman smashed a mirror over her boyfriend’s head just seven weeks after being given a suspended sentence for slashing another partner in the face with a kitchen knife.
Stephanie Ines Priscella Roberts, 21, launched the alcohol and drug-fuelled assault on her Swansea University student partner after a heated row. When police arrived, she locked herself in his room and claimed to be the victim.
Less than two months earlier, she had been given a two-year suspended sentence for attacking a different partner who was studying at Warwick University.
Craig Jones, prosecuting, said Roberts had been in a relationship with Michael Deery since 2015 when then pair had met at college. That relationship continued when Mr Deery moved to Swansea to start university.
The prosecutor said that, according to Mr Deery, the relationship began to deteriorate as his partner became jealous, taking control of his Facebook account in the weeks before she attacked him.
On January 16 this year, Mr Deery returned to Swansea from his home in London by coach, accompanied by Roberts.
Mr Jones said the pair went to Mr Deery’s flat in the university ‘s Hendrefoilan Student Village, where they spent the evening watching films on his laptop.
The court heard Mr Deery housemates’ later became aware of a “disturbance” in his room and called the police after hearing Roberts shouting that she was going to kill her boyfriend and that he was going to hell.
The court heard that Mr Deery then staggered from his room, covered in blood, and sat in the kitchen where his friends tended to his wounds.
The prosecutor said Roberts had “lunged” at her partner while they were together in his room, hitting him on the head and face with both hands.
She then smashed a makeup mirror on his head with what the victim called an “overarm motion”, leaving him with a 3in cut in the hairline that required three stitches.
The court was told that by the time police arrived, Roberts had locked herself in Mr Deery’s room, later telling officers she was scared of her partner and she was in fact the victim.
Roberts, of Weatherby Gardens, South Kensington, London, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm in relation to the incident involving Mr
Deery.
Prior to that incident, in November 2017 Roberts was given a two-year sentence, suspended for two years, along with a rehabilitation course and restraining order after pleading guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent in relation to a different partner.
That conviction resulted from an incident in November 2016 when she had slashed then boyfriend Ravi Benitez in the face with a large kitchen knife at his flat at Warwick University.
The judge in the Warwick case heard that Roberts suffered a mentally abusive and “toxic” relationship at the hands of 19-yearold Mr Benitez, and on the night in question had been under the influence of alcohol and the tranquiliser Xanax – substances given to her by her then partner.
At Swansea Crown Court yesterday, Judge Geraint Walters noted the similarities in the two assaults, including the defendant’s consumption of alcohol and Xanax. In the Swansea incident, there was no suggestion that Roberts’ partner had supplied the substances.
Judge Walters said: “It seems to me that lying and manipulating others comes quite easily to you. For far too long you have been able to persuade others close to you that nothing is your fault.”
Roberts was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment for the Swansea assault, and the judge activated 12 months of the previous two-year suspended sentence from the Warwick incident, to run consecutively – making a total of 21 months in prison.