Port Talbot Man Jailed for Controlling and Abusive Behaviour

A 36-year-old Port Talbot man who controlled his partner’s life and subjected her to verbal and physical abuse has been jailed for two years. 📱⚖️

Richard Clement, of Glady Street, pleaded guilty to engaging in coercive or controlling behaviour, assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH), and criminal damage.

Swansea Crown Court heard that Clement would take his partner’s phone to prevent her from communicating with others, demand money, and insist she drive him around.

The court was told of a New Year’s Eve incident where Clement demanded his partner drive him to a friend’s house. When she refused, he took her keys and headed for her car. When she tried to stop him, he took her to the floor and repeatedly kicked her in the ribs before picking her up and throwing her to the floor again.

In a January incident, the woman returned home to feed her cats after staying with friends, only to find Clement in her bedroom. He grabbed her by the hair and pinned her against the bathroom door, calling her a “slag” and demanding she drive him to her friend’s house to prove where she had been staying.

In an impact statement read to the court, the victim said: “I feel he has completely destroyed me.”

Judge Paul Thomas KC told Clement he was a “cowardly bully” and an “immaturely jealous man” who behaved “more like a 13-year-old boy with his first crush than a man in his late 30s.”

The defendant has nine previous convictions for 21 offences including ABH, battery, and an unlawful wounding and making threats to kill in relation to a different partner. In 2021, he was jailed for 30 months for dealing cocaine in Port Talbot.

With a one-third discount for his guilty pleas, Clement received two years for the coercive behaviour, six months for ABH, and one month for criminal damage, all to run concurrently. He will serve up to half the sentence in custody before being released on licence.