Domestic violence. Minor assault. Custodial sentence?

[GreedyGecko]

I'll try to keep this short. Last week DP assaulted me. I came out wiht a couople of bruises on my back and a couple on my arm. He was arrested as soon as police arrived. He admitted the assault in interview. Was very upset and apologetic. Had initial hearing yesterday, pleaded guilty, again very upset, stressed how sorry he is. He has now been told he is looking at a custodial sentence. This seems really harsh to me, especially as I was told by several different sources it would either be fine & compensation or anger mgmt classes.

Are they just trying to scare him? Or is he really likely to be looking at time? I feel sick thinking that he may be going to prison, especially as it'll be Winchester that he goes to.

[callmemadam]

Hi GG - I am a magistrate trained in dealing with domestic violence cases. The likelihood is that the magistrates have referred him to Probation for a report to be prepared on him, and the threshold will be custodial, but depending on what the report says about your DP he may be sentenced to a Community Order, which could include unpaid work, group therapy, anger management and so on. He would not be fined for a domestic assault.

You seem astonishingly calm, to be honest. Physical, verbal or emotional assaults on family members are not acceptable and the courts will treat each case very seriously indeed.

[AussieSim]

I had a DP abuse me and he was given a 2 year good behaviour bond and a big fine - this is in Australia. I had to beg him to plead guilty as I didn't want to go through testifying. The trade off was that I had to drop the Apprehended Violence Order, which would have prevented him from coming near me. The amazing thing was that it came out that he had been convicted of assault a few years earlier and had never mentioned it to me. I moved out the night it happened but I did suffer Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome that wound up in my losing my job and some friends!

You aren't planning to have him back are you? I've never heard such reconciliations working out. Once a man has crossed that line it appears they have great difficulty going back. I assume there are children involved as well ...

[GreedyGecko]

Thanks callmemadam. Its reassuring to know that there are many different options for the magistrate to consider when sentencing him, and hopefully probation report will be good for him (don't see any reason why it shoudln't be).

I think I'm calm about it because it was the end of our relationship anyway, not excusing his actions in any way, but I think I was already prepared for the relationship to end, so the assault just cemented it really. He was also provoked by me seeing other men, so my actions have been unforgivable too. I've got my 2 boys to look after, so I've got to hold things together for them, although didn't do a very good job of that yesterday when I spent the whole night in the bathroom! Just keeping myself busy in the evenings and getting out during the day so I don't get a huge amount of time to think about it.

[GreedyGecko]

AussieSim, sorry to hear about your assault and PTS. I guess it's times like that you discover your real 'friends'. at him not telling you about previous assault.

He's staying with his brother. I want everything to be amicable between us as we've had 10 really good years. Obviously had our ups and downs, as every couple does, but all in all we've been good together. The attack was totally out of character, but I agree that once that line has been crossed, there's no going back. I thin I would always be worried when we were arguing that he was going tolash out at me. His mum keeps phoning, thinks we'll sort it out. She was beaten by his dad for the whole 40 years of their marriage, that's certainly not happening with me.

Unfortunately our children were witness to it happening. Apparently he was scared I was going to take them away and not let him see them.