A judge has jailed a Huddersfield man for 16 months for assaulting his then girlfriend after she questioned him about a text message he had received.
Leeds Crown Court heard John Junior Wells was at a neighbour’s house in Handel Terrace, Golcar, when the complainant Catherine Herbert returned home in the early hours of July 27 last year.
She had been out socialising and when she went to join Wells she saw a text message on his mobile phone stating; “I miss you too” with an X at the end.
Nadim Bashir prosecuting said she was concerned and asked who had sent it to him. That caused Wells to get angry, he dragged her to the floor by her hair before then dragging her home.
Once there he grabbed her by the throat and threw her around so that she hit her head on a wall, shouting it was all her fault.
She remembered being on a sofa at one point with him trying to choke her and feared she was going to die. At another stage he stamped on her face as she was on the floor and that caused her to black out for a time.
When she came round he was holding her on the kitchen floor with her head in his lap stroking her hair. She managed to leave the house to seek help and when he followed her she went back into her home and locked the door and went upstairs to ring for the police.
Adam Birkby representing Wells said he “accepts this behaviour was disgusting.”
He realised he had a problem with his temper and recognised he needed professional help to deal with it and was prepared to co-operate with that.
He said Wells had another side to him which was shown by his caring for his mother who was ill.
Wells, 29 of Lochbridge Way, Milnsbridge, Huddersfield admitted assaulting Catherine Herbert causing her actual bodily harm.
Jailing him Judge Neil Clark said when the complainant asked about the message on Wells mobile phone “this caused in you a remarkable loss of temper. Your behaviour from that point onwards was shocking and cowardly.”
