Lurgan woman weeps in Craigavon Crown Court as she is jailed for attacking partner with a pint glass on two occasions
A woman who subjected her partner to two separate drunken domestic attacks, striking him to the head with a glass both times, wept in court on Friday as she was handed a four-and-a-half year sentence.
While Craigavon Crown Court saw the bloody aftermath of the first incident as the arrest was captured on officers’ body-worn cameras, Joanne McCusker’s second attack was captured in its entirety, on a camera the victim had installed.
As prosecuting counsel Ian Tannahill emphasised, the video “gives as clear a picture as the court is ever likely to see, of the domestic abuse which goes on behind closed doors”.
Jailing McCusker, Judge Donna McColgan KC said given the defence submissions and contents of the various reports put before her, “I can make this an uneven split” between custody and licence periods.
As a result, she ordered 61-year-old McCusker to serve 18 months in prison and a further three years on licence.
On two separate sets of charges, McCusker, from Shankill Street in Lurgan, had earlier entered guilty pleas to offences of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and causing criminal damage to a hearing control panel and a phone on June 28 last year.
The 61-year-old also admitted attempting to cause GBH with intent and assaulting a police officer on June 8 last year.
Judge McColgan outlined how McCusker had been in a relationship with the victim at the time and on June 8, the pair had been sitting on the sofa, drinking and watching a movie.
After the defendant started an argument with him, she launched an unprovoked assault when she “lifted a pint glass and struck him to the top of the head”.
Having locked himself in the bathroom, the victim “tended to the wound himself” and then called for police, said the judge.
When officers arrived, they found him lying on the “heavily blood stained bed, holding a towel to his head” and when they tried to arrest the “heavily intoxicated” McCusker, she struggled with police and managed to free herself from the cuffs and kick out at a constable.
The court was able to see the footage of that arrest, recorded on an officer’s body-worn camera and Judge McColgan said that after McCusker was interviewed, she was released on police bail with conditions not to drink and not to be in contact with the victim.
The court heard that 20 days later, and with the victim having installed a camera for his own protection, McCusker was back in his house and in an almost mirror situation from the first attack.
The video was played in court and the pair were seen sitting on the sofa, watching TV and drinking when without warning, McCusker lifts a pint glass filled with what appears to be Guinness, and pulling her arm back, strikes the victim to the side of his head.
The man immediately puts his hand to his head and gets up as he tries to leave the room but McCusker grabs him, tearing his face and t-shirt, pulling him back and dragging him across the room.
The pair fall onto the sofa and McCusker continues her assault, pushing the victim back a number of times as her “clearly bleeding” victim tries to leave the room.
"He doesn’t appear to strike any blow to her,” Judge McColgan told the court, adding that when police arrived, McCusker was found hiding in bed, completely under the duvet.
Meanwhile, her victim went to hospital where doctors treated his lacerations as well as cuts and scrapes to his arms.
In her sentencing remarks, the judge emphasised the second incident occurred when McCusker was clearly in breach of her bail conditions but in mitigation, “she is entitled to some benefit for pleading guilty”.
Judge McColgan said it was clear from defence reports that McCusker suffers from developmental and cognitive limitations which affect how she responds to stressful situations.
It was also clear however, that McCusker had tried to minimise her offending and had claimed that she herself, had been the victim of domestic abuse but the judge told the court, “I have not seen any evidence to support that”.
Imposing the 54-month sentence, with 18 to be served in prison and the rest under supervised licence conditions, Judge McColgan explained that instead of imposing consecutive sentences for the two attacks, she was taking an overall “global approach”.