A violent thug whose bloody assault left his partner needing facial surgery threatened to bury her in a hole if she spoke out about his domestic abuse.
John Neild, 30, of Barnes Close, Widnes, attacked the woman twice in separate attacks just over a month apart, trying to strangle her during the first incident and then knocking her out in the second using what a surgeon said must have been a “high energy blow” that broke bones and blood vessels.
Jayne Morris, prosecuting at Chester Crown Court on Wednesday, said Neild turned aggressive with his partner of nearly three years at home at around 10pm on Boxing Day while hosting friends.
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Neild slapped the woman and made comments such as “why do you always have to be such a f***ing b*tch?”
He told their friends to “get the f*** out” and his victim retreated to the bedroom, where he pushed her on the bed and “tried to strangle her”.
Neild stifled her shouts for help and grabbed a kitchen knife before standing in the hallway threatening his friends to “get out”. The assault continued in the bedroom.
Ms Morris said: “He pushed her onto the bed. She fell face-down, she managed to lift her head and scream for help. The defendant put his hand under her mouth and threatened her ‘if you don’t f***ing stop I will bite your ear off’.
“She said she stopped screaming. She thought she would get into further trouble. She wanted him to stop. At that point the defendant started slapping her face.”
Neild took her phone and the ordeal continued into the early hours of December 27. He told her “if you weren’t such a f***ing s**g, I wouldn’t be like this” and slapped her as she tried to sleep.
She asked him to call an ambulance as she had a prior health condition but he refused and said he would “keep an eye on her”. At 3pm on December 27 she ran to the bathroom and shouted for help from her son who lived nearby and they fled together.
When Neild contacted her later, she told him: “If anything happened to me you wouldn’t get away with it.” He replied: “I will because I’ll just bury the body, I’ve already dug a hole.”
Neild was arrested and bailed. On Friday, February 4, the couple went drinking in Runcorn and after leaving The Royal pub, where Neild had accused someone of looking at his partner, Neild “became angry” when the woman asked if they had enough money for a takeaway and transport.
They went their separate ways but “within minutes”, she “heard the defendant shouting ‘whore’, ‘prostitute’.” MFs Morris said the woman “remembers thinking the defendant was aggressive and she was about to be attacked” so she screamed.
Her last memory was seeing a doorman, later identified as Raymond Quinlan, responding to her screams for help and approaching to assist her. Before he could intervene, she “hit the floor”, with no memory of what happened after that.
In his witness statement, Mr Quinlan said he saw Neild “pushing and pulling her with both hands” and the woman grabbed some railings but Neild yanked her away down a road.
She was “distressed and crying”. When the doorman said he was calling the police, Neild turned towards him, reached inside his pocket as though withdrawing a weapon and told Mr Quinlan: “I’m going to f***ing stab you.”
The doorman backed off, then heard a “thump” and saw Neild run away. Mr Quinlan found the woman “lying on her back unconscious”. Blood was flowing from around her eye socket, her cheek and nose were swollen, her left eye socket was dark and swollen.
He said he was “taken aback by the severity of the injuries and how quickly they had formed”. She was unresponsive to attempts to stir her.
In his victim statement read to the court by Ms Morris, Mr Quinlan branded Neild a “disgrace to mankind for what he did” and he hoped “the courts deliver justice”. He added he had suffered flashbacks.
Neild had inflicted facial fractures and broken blood vessels to the woman’s face, and after arriving by ambulance at hospital she underwent surgery under general anaesthetic to insert titanium plates and screws.
According to the surgeon’s medical evidence the victim made a “good recovery” but needed IV antibiotics for an infection at the injury site.
The surgeon said the injuries must have been caused by a “high energy blow”. The court heard the woman didn’t provide a victim statement and did not want a restraining order.
Neild later pleaded guilty to Section 20 grievous bodily harm (GBH) and threatening behaviour over the February 4 incident, and to assault occasioning actual bodily harm over the Boxing Day assault. Ms Morris said Neild had nine convictions for 12 offences including three for violence, cannabis supply, and threatening with a bladed article.
Judge Eric Lamb, Recorder, agreed the woman’s injuries were “grave” but he could not place the GBH assault in the worst category because there was no victim statement to confirm the level of lasting impact required to put it in the top sentencing bracket. Jeremy Rawson, defending, pleaded mitigation for Neild’s early guilty pleas and said his last conviction was five years ago, but conceded “it’s not a great record”.
He said Neild was “ashamed he’s caused his partner those injuries”, adding: “He’s remorseful and full of regret.” Mr Rawson said Neild was “determined to address his offending behaviour”, namely by tackling “his use of alcohol and his lack of tolerance of it, and his need for anger management”.
He said a letter to the court from the complainant described Neild as a family “support” and “role model” who “acted as her carer”, and the “relationship continues”. Mr Rawson said: “There’s good in this defendant but there’s also the devilry provoked by alcohol.”
Recorder Lamb passed concurrent sentences totalling 16 months for the GBH assault and threatening behaviour, both consecutive with the 12 months for ABH. The total sentence was two years and four months.
He said Neild had been “badly affected by drink” and one assault involved “trying to strangle” his victim. The judge said Neild had caused injuries that required “extensive surgery” and “numerous visits to hospital”.
He said Neild had knocked out the woman before “running off in cowardly fashion having inflicted those serious injuries upon her”. With reference to the ABH assault, he said: “You had been together for two years and nine months by Boxing Day,
“You had been drinking and there’s every appearance you’ve been badly affected by drink and you became abusive towards her.
“You were calling her names, trying to have your joint friends leave the house in particular. At one point you pushed her onto a bed and tried to strangle her.
“When she was seeking to shout for help you threatened her friends to get them out of the property and became agitated, pushed her on the bed and threatened to bite her ears off. You slapped her on the face, you took her phone off her and it was 3am in the morning when she ran to the bathroom when she was able to seek help from her son.
“A prolonged incident in a domestic context in which you abused your greater power and strength with the lady you purported to be a carer for.”
