Ashley Barker, 33, almost killed her girlfriend, Bethany Evans, for speaking to an ex-boyfriend.
He chased her even after she jumped out of a taxi – then pushed her over a wall before grabbing her blonde hair and smashing her head against the pavement.
After grabbing her hair and hitting her head, he dragged her back to his home where he throttled her until she could hardly breathe saying ‘I’m going to kill you’.
Bethany pleaded for him to stop but he won’t and even go as far as holding a kitchen knife to her throat saying: ‘I’m going to kill you.’
The brute shared home with his mother, so the mother ran to the scene and intervene and helped Bethany to escape. The mother called the police after her escape.
Inquiries revealed that Bethany used her makeup to cover bruises she has suffered from his rough treatments in fears to be assaulted again.
‘I was left feeling as if I was living in a constant nightmare,’ a distraughted Bethany said in her statement.
Ashley Barker is now jailed for two years and also labelled a risk to the public by a judge at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester since he admitted a charge of coercive and controlling behaviour.
The pair started dating last year, December 2021.
Adam White prosecuting said:
‘She says he would become abusive towards her whenever she spoke to other men and call her a “sl**”.
‘She stopped posting photos of herself on social media as it would cause arguments when other men liked or commented on them.
‘The first incident of violence she recalls occurred at his mother’s address after he had been on a night out.
‘He asked her to pass him an e-cigarette and she said no, prompting him to grab her by the throat.
‘She kicked him and his mother came to remove him from the room. This prompted him to start headbutting the door and hitting himself in the face.
‘The second incident when Miss Evans had been on a night out, and the Defendant had seen her with another male.
‘When she returned to his mother’s address, he again grabbed her by the throat, pinning her down on top of the cooker.
‘The next incident was towards the end of May. He had again been out drinking, and Miss Evans was in bed at his mother’s address.
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He came upstairs and she asked to be left alone, at which point he hit her in the face, causing a black eye and some swelling around the top of her nose.’After this incident the defendant insisted on Miss Evans using makeup to cover up the marks he had caused, and he would get angry with her if she did not do so,’ the prosecutor said.
‘She recalls an occasion where a relative asked about the bruising to her eye, and she felt compelled to invent a story about how she had dropped her phone on her face.
‘Towards the end of May, they had another argument and Miss Evans went out without him. Whilst she was out, she spoke to him on the phone and told him she had had enough.
‘He rang her back and demanded to know where she was, telling her that if she did not tell him then he would blow up her family’s houses.
‘She caved in and ordered him a taxi to the pub she was in, but he left again shortly after arriving because he was unhappy about some other men being there.
‘She eventually ended up meeting him back at his mother’s house again, where he had continued drinking by himself.
‘When she arrived, he made clear he was unhappy about how long it had taken her to get back and said she had “taken the piss out of him”.
‘Yet again, he grabbed her by the neck again and threw her onto the couch before starting to apologise.
‘The last incident occurred in June when they met up at a pub. They got a taxi but when they got in it, he started complaining about the fact she had been speaking to her ex-boyfriend.
‘She asked the driver to pull over, got out, and went and sat on a wall. But he came over to her and pushed her off the wall, grabbed hold of her and hit her head on the floor, busting her lip and causing a cut to her nose.
‘She got back up and he took her phone off her and insisted she had to come back to his mother’s house with him.
‘She said she did not want to go with him, and he grabbed her by the hair and started pulling her.
‘They eventually got back to the house and when she asked for her phone again, he again grabbed her by the neck and pinned her down.
‘His mother has then intervened and tried to pull him off her, but he again grabbed hold of her hair and dragged her to the floor where he started kicking her in her sides.
‘Unlike the other times he had strangled her, on this occasion she says she was struggling to breathe, and she thought that he was going to kill her.
‘He then went to the kitchen and retrieved a knife. She attempted to leave, and he grabbed her by the hair again, pinning her to the stairs with the knife to her throat, and told her he was going to kill her.
‘This prompted his mother to call the police and he then left the address, returning briefly to apologise to her through the letterbox.
‘Miss Evans went to a friend’s address, and he made a phone call during which he called her a “c***” said he was going to kill her, and that he would “f*** her up”.
After the statements said above by the prosecuting counsel, Judge Matthew Corbett-Jones told him [the defendant]:
‘It is clear that your offending during this relationship had a serious effect on her. She has been living in a constant nightmare.
Also, Barker has been banned from contacting Miss Evans for ten years under the terms of a restraining order.
