Cardiff man jailed for three-year campaign of partner abuse

A Cardiff man has been sentenced to 41 months in prison after subjecting his partner to three years of violence, abuse and controlling behaviour. 🚨

John McEvoy, 34, of Bro Athro, Trowbridge, Cardiff, fitted a tracking device to the woman’s car, repeatedly assaulted her, threatened her with machetes, and suffocated her with a pillow during their relationship which began in April 2022.

Swansea Crown Court heard how McEvoy’s behaviour quickly deteriorated after the early stages of their relationship were “good”. He became “extremely jealous” and started flying into tempers, being verbally abusive and threatening.

The court heard McEvoy threw a tea cup at his partner’s head in a Swansea hotel, before turning up the next day armed with machetes. In Cardiff, he beat her feet with a kettle and hit her head with a perfume bottle. Following a night out in Neath, he slapped her and threatened to “scar” her with a kitchen knife, saying he would “make sure she never went out again”.

During one incident in Bridgend, after accusing his partner of fancying a colleague, McEvoy said: “I’m having no wife that fancies a black man” before grabbing her neck, slapping and punching her, leaving her with a split lip and swollen nose.

On Christmas Eve last year, McEvoy pinned the woman down and used a pillow to suffocate her, leaving her “panicking” and struggling to breathe.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said the relationship had left her “an emotional wreck” and that she was “struggling to function day-to-day”. She said: “I always had to try to second guess what kind of mood the defendant would be in when he woke up.”

McEvoy’s barrister, Tim Naylor, told the court his client had been dealing with the breakdown of his marriage and deaths of family members, whilst drinking heavily.

Judge Huw Rees said McEvoy used “a campaign of aggression and violence in order to instil fear and gain power and control” over his partner. He told the defendant: “Your pathetic jealousy says more about you than about her.”

McEvoy pleaded guilty to engaging in coercive or controlling behaviour, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, intentional suffocation, and making threats to kill. He will serve up to half his sentence before being released on licence. ⚖️