A COVENTRY teenager was attacked by her boyfriend after she had contacted him and let him stay at the safe refuge she had been found following an earlier assault by him.
Corey McVicar had faced three charges of assaulting the 17-year-old girl before she was found a place at the refuge – and a further charge of assaulting her there.
But on the day of his trial at Warwick Crown Court he pleaded guilty to the first and last incidents, and the other two allegations were allowed to lie on the court file.
After entering his pleas, McVicar (24) of York Road, Erdington, Birmingham, was jailed for ten months.
Prosecutor Graeme Simpson said that McVicar and the girl, who cannot be named because of her age, had been in a relationship for around eight months by September last year.
She lived with her parents in Coventry, but often stayed with McVicar in an abandoned house, and she began missing days at college and dental appointments to be with him.
But it was ‘a toxic relationship,’ and after spending the night with him she was woken on September 10 by him slapping her to the face.
McVicar then grabbed her by the hair, dragged her out of bed to the floor and began hurling abuse at her, accusing her of seeing someone else.
She got away from him and went upstairs where she stayed to give him time to calm down.
And when she went back down, his mood had completely changed, and he apologised, explaining that he had reacted to a dream he had had about her seeing another person.
He was alleged to have assaulted her again on the following two days, although those were the charges which he continued to deny and were not proceeded with.
But as a result, the girl had gone to the police and had been found a place at a safe refuge.
Despite being somewhere where he could not find her, she not only contacted McVicar in October, but allowed him to stay with her at the safe flat for a week.
Then on October 21, at the refuge, she was again woken by him slapping her, grabbing her by the hair and dragging her out of bed before gabbing her round the throat and punching her.
Following that incident, she again contacted the police, but when he was arrested later that day, McVicar denied assaulting her and accused her of self-harming to get him into trouble.
At Mr Simpson’s request, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano made a restraining order preventing McVicar from contacting the girl or going near her father’s address.
John O’Higgins, defending, conceded: “On any view, this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. But it’s not black and white, there was some violence between them.
“After the first incident she contacted him and invited him back to her place of refuge, and then the second incident occurred.”
Jailing McVicar, Judge de Bertodano told him: “You are 24, and she is therefore much younger than you.
“It was clearly not a relationship that was good for either of you, and there was a lot of anger and argument between you, but I have to deal with two occasions on which you were violent towards her.
“It is a very serious state of affairs. This is a young girl who has trusted you within a relationship, and has been treated by you in this way.
“You are going to have to learn to control your temper, or you will never have a successful relationship, and you will end up in court again and again and again.
“The message has to go out that if men attack young women in this way in their own home, they must serve an immediate prison sentence.”
