A man squeezed a woman’s face so hard it caused some of her teeth to fall out, a court has heard.
CCTV footage secretly recorded by the victim in the lounge of her home in Blaenau Gwent, South Wales, showed Lewis Thomas dragging her across the floor by her hair and legs during the “truly awful” assault on February 10, 2020.
The victim later told officers Thomas, from Gilwern, had become irate after she told him to take off his Wellington boots when walking in the house. Andrew Kendall, prosecuting, told a sentencing hearing at Newport Crown Court how during the argument Thomas asked the woman: “Why are you doing this to me?” He then smashed her lamp on the floor.
Thomas then told her: “The only person you’ve got is me". He stood on her stomach, kicked her and squeezed her face during the ordeal, the court heard.
Mr Kendall said the pair had met in 2017 and had been in a relationship until 2020, but the court heard they were not in a relationship at the time of the incident, reports Wales Online.
The woman later told police that as a result of the attack she had significant bruising on her arm and that she had lost several teeth as a result of Thomas squeezing her face.
Thomas gave Gwent Police officers a prepared statement denying what had happened and said the victim had been violent towards him. Thomas, who has four previous convictions for eight offences, was at the time of sentencing already serving 12 years and eight months for his role in a large-scale drug trafficking operation in the region which he was sentenced for in November last year.
In a victim impact statement the woman called the incident “traumatic and horrific”. “It has ruined my life and made me a nervous wreck,” she said, adding that she was a “previously successful medical rep” which enabled her to “invest in properties”, but her life has since changed for the worse.
“I have been diagnosed with PTSD. I suffer from panic attacks and constant flashbacks,” she said. “My physical scars have healed but my mental scars will always remain. No man or woman should ever have so much taken away from them including their self worth.”
Karl Volz, for Thomas, said his client has no previous convictions for offences which include violence and said Thomas was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the assault. “At times he has felt near suicidal because of the guilt he feels,” Mr Volz said. “He accepts it is a truly awful assault.
"We say he went over to collect five dogs she was looking after for him and an argument arose between them. We say she threw dog excrement in his face and he accepts he went way way way over the top because of that.”
Mr Volz said Thomas has “a number of certificates which show he is busying himself in custody with construction work which may contribute in some way to some rehabilitation.
“He feels utterly destroyed by the situation he has found himself in - of his own making he accepts.”
Addressing Thomas in the dock, Judge Richard Williams told him he appeared to have been “revelling in tormenting her”. He told Thomas the behaviour he showed in the footage is “sickening sadism, cruelty, misogyny and cowardice”.
He sentenced Thomas, of HMP Cardiff, to 24 months for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, to run consecutively with his current sentence, making for an overall term of 14 years and eight months.
He was also given an indefinite restraining order banning him from approaching the woman by any means.
