The man squeezed the woman’s face so hard that her teeth fell out during a bout of “sickness”

The man squeezed the woman’s face so hard he said she broke her teeth, heard a court. CCTV footage secretly taken by the victim in the living room of her home in Blaenau Gwent shows Lewis Thomas dragging her across the floor by her hair and legs during the “truly horrific” attack on 10 February 2020.

The victim later told officers that Thomas, from Gilvern, became angry after she told him to take off Wellington’s boots when he entered the house. Andrew Kendall, the prosecutor, told at the Newport Crown Court sentencing hearing how, during the argument, Thomas asked the woman, “Why are you doing this to me?” Then he smashed his lamp on the floor.

Thomas then told him, “The only person you have is me.” He lay on his stomach, kicked and squeezed his face during the ordeal, the court was told.

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Kendall said the couple met in 2017 and were in a relationship until 2020, but the court heard they were not in a relationship at the time of the incident. The woman later told police that she had a badly bruised arm and lost several teeth as a result of the attack, because Thomas had squeezed her face.

Thomas gave a statement to the Gwent Police, in which he denied what had happened and said that the victim had been violent towards him. Thomas, who has four previous convictions for eight crimes, was already serving a sentence of 12 years and eight months at the time of sentencing for his role in a large-scale drug trafficking operation in the region for which he was convicted last November.

In the victim’s statement, the woman called the incident “traumatic and terrible”. “It ruined my life and made me nervous,” she said, adding that she “used to be a successful medical representative,” which allowed her to “invest in real estate,” but since then her life has taken a turn for the worse.

“I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I suffer from panic attacks and constant flashbacks,” he said. “My physical scars have healed, but the mental scars will always remain. No man or woman should have taken so much from them, including their self-esteem.”

Thomas’ Karl Volz said his client had no previous convictions for crimes related to violence and said Thomas was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the attack. “At times he felt almost suicidal because of the guilt,” Volz said. “He accepts that this is a truly horrible attack.

“We say he went after the five dogs she was looking after and there was an argument between them. We’re saying she threw dog shit in his face and he admits it made him overreact.”

Waltz said Thomas had “several certificates to show that he has been involved in custodial works that may contribute in some way to rehabilitation”. “He feels completely destroyed by the situation he finds himself in, he gives in to his own desire.”

Addressing Thomas in the dock, Judge Richard Williams told her that he seemed to “enjoy tormenting her”. He said Thomas’ behavior, which he saw in the footage, was “abominable sadism, cruelty, misogyny and cowardice”. He sentenced Thomas of HMP Cardiff to 24 months for assault causing actual bodily harm and extended his current sentence to a total of 14 years and eight months. He also received an indefinite restraining order prohibiting him from approaching the woman in any way.

Source: Wales Online