AN ANGRY Coventry man who subjected his girlfriend to a brutal and sustained attack in the home of one of her friends, leaving her bleeding from a painful injury, has been jailed.
Lentine Shaw pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to inflicting grievous bodily harm on his partner and intimidating her friend, who had witnessed the attack.
Shaw, 22, of Caradoc Close, Coventry, was jailed for two years for the assault – with a consecutive one-year sentence for witness intimidation.
Prosecutor Edward Hollingsworth said Shaw and his 19-year-old victim were partners at the time of the incident at the beginning of June, although they were not living together.
On June 3 the victim was at the home of a friend when Shaw turned up and simply walked in through the unlocked front door.
Ignoring the friend’s screams for him to get out, he ran upstairs into a bedroom where his partner was lying, jumped on the bed and immediately began to attack her.
In a prolonged attack which was witnessed by one of the friend’s children, he punched and kicked his victim as she curled up on the bed, and bit her to the back.
He then grabbed her by her hair and dragged her out of the bedroom onto the landing as her friend tried unsuccessfully to intervene.
Shaw then stopped his attack, threw a £10 note onto the bed, telling his victim not to tell anyone, and went downstairs.
But he then came back up, gave her a last kick and picked up the £10 before finally leaving.
She seemed to be unconscious, and was bleeding from her nose and, more severely, from an intimate area which had been cut so badly it needed stitches.
Later that day Shaw sent a text to his partner’s friend, warning her: “If you put in a statement, I’m going to go mad.”
Mr Hollingsworth added that Shaw had previous convictions for violence and for intimidating a witness.
Simon Hunka, defending, conceded: “This is an appalling assault, there is no doubt. The type of sentence is inevitable.
“But appalling as this assault is, it is an injury which is not serious in the context of a section 20 (causing grievous bodily harm) which goes up to people receiving life-changing injuries.”
Mr Hunka said the victim had said something in a phone call which had provoked Shaw, and although that was no excuse, it was an explanation for what happened.
“It was a completely irrational reaction which arose out of his feelings of jealousy. He is remorseful for what he did, and he acknowledges he has a problem.
“The complainant knows him far better than anyone in this room, and she has remained with him. They have discussed together what his problems are.”
Jailing Shaw, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC told him: “You have amassed a significant number of convictions across the course of your criminal career, and in 2012 a witness in an assault case was intimidated by you.
“You formed a relationship with (the victim), and you had a stormy relationship.
“On June 3 she went to the home of her friend in the early part of the morning, and at that address were a number of children.
“You arrived, and were extremely angry, and you located her upstairs and you began a severe assault on her.
“You punched her and kicked her, and you bit her to the back, and you grabbed her by the hair and, in a very degrading way, you dragged her out of the room and continued to kick her.
“There was a severe injury which caused a cut, and which bled severely; and there were children present, which is a serious aggravating feature.”
