Assault to injury - what sentence is he realistically going to get.

[Assaulttoinjury]

Hi. I’m a name changer as I think my partner knows my usual name.

This week my partner lost the plot and smashed my daughters phone and assaulted me. The assault involved pushing me, grabbing my arms and shaking me leaving bruises on both my arms and then he bashed my head off a cupboard door a few times leaving a big lump. My dc (not his ) saw part of it and heard it all.

He was arrested, charged and plead guilty to breach of the peace and assault to injury. Going back for sentencing next month. He’s been bailed with the condition to not make contact or come to the house.

Does anyone have professional or personal experience of Scottish law and what kind of sentence he should realistically expect? The police were so vague and I need to be prepared. He does have a previous conviction for assault against a partner but that was 15 years ago when he was in his twenties. Don’t think he’s got anything else but I’ve raised a disclosure request to find out but it will take weeks. I’m not worried about him coming back as I know as soon as sentence is passed he’ll be gone like the wind (originally from a different part of the UK), minimising the incident to friends/ family and blaming it on stress, alcohol and me being unreasonable probably.

I’m just so heartbroken and trying to pick up the bits of our lives now the hurricane has passed.

Can anyone offer any advice?

Sorry to hear you are going through this :(

All you can do is be as clear in your statements as possible and be a witness at the trial. Don't play anything down.

Did they get pictures of the injury?

Surely he will get several years, especially considering his past offense against a woman. But I guess we never know how these things will go for sure.

Make use of the courts victim support. And maybe see about counciling for your little one. Never take the bastard back! Well done on reporting the arsehole if it was you that called.

Good luck with everything to come!

Thanks @Bunnymumy.

There’ll be no trial as he changed his plea to guilty (after originally pleading not guilty). I think the evidence was overwhelming and his lawyer would have told him so. I gave a full statement on the evening and the police took photos of the bruises. They also took bulletpoints from my daughter whose 14 and who called the police.

I’m definitely going to try to use all the resources that I can and will get counselling for us all. I’m a wreck and running on adrenaline still. The crazy thing is that I miss him still and feel heartbroken in spite of what he did. We’ll all take time to get over this but I know I can’t and won’t take him back.

Have you been contacted by the fiscal? There should be some kind of victim liaison. I'd guess a year to 18m, but hard to be sure. Give a victim statement if you can, right now he has some control of the narrative.

And well done

@SylvanianFrenemies. Really - do you think that he’ll serve jail time? I had assumed that he’d get a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again as I only reported one incident. There have been others (verbal, text abuse and a couple of other less serious physical) but I didn’t give a proper statement about them. Now he’s plead guilty, I’m not going to report these as I don’t think I’ve got the corroborating evidence and we need closure and to help us all move on.

In my statement I can add several aggregating factors. My dc’s biological father died last year - the bastard sat with us at the front of the church at his funeral.... They are vulnerable grieving children who’ve now been betrayed and lost someone else who they loved. I’m so angry at what he did to them. He promised he’d always keep us safe and protect us.

Bump for the evening crowd. Hoping to hear from someone who knows the Scottish legal system.

Hello,

I’m a lawyer in Scotland.

Sounds like it’s a summary complaint as he has already pled guilty. On that basis, the maximum time he will get in jail will be 12 months.

To be honest with you, given the current climate, sheriffs are not sending as many people to jail at present.

Not what you want to hear, but I suspect he may well receive a community payback order (community service) as well as a fine.

You are entitled to ask for a non harassment order via the Fiscal, should you feel that appropriate.

Contact The Procurator Fiscal and they can advise you further re non harassment order.

Hope that helps!

Your poor dd. Witnessing that and having the strength to make the call. I think you need to make sure that you ask for the other incidents to be logged retrospectively. Otherwise she will feel as though you are deliberately minimizing and downplaying the incident as a one off instead of following a pattern which culminated in this attack. She needs to feel as though she did the right thing.
Hopefully he’ll get banged up. Before he gets the opportunity to kill the next woman.

Hopefully he goes to jail. Awful for you but so much worse for your daughter to witness this animal in action. And to have to make the call.

Thanks everyone. Yeah both dc are pretty amazing and I’m sure we’ll get through it. She was v close to him and he encouraged her hugely with all her academic and extra curricular activities. He promised us that he’d always protect us and would be there for us. Hollow words.

It is crap that he probably won’t serve time for what he did - especially as he’s done it before. It’s good to have realistic/ low expectations though so I can manage that with the dc before we hear. I’m going to pull together a masterpiece of a victim statement for the judge. Don’t know if it will make any difference but I’ll try my best.

I would defer to @LRG30 on this. Remember that even if he doesn't get jail time, a payback order will still be a punishment, and disrupt his life enough to feel like a consequence.