A WOMAN has told a jury she was kicked in the face and left bleeding by her husband during an alleged domestic attack at their Carlisle home.
Kevin Steel, 53, is on trial at the city’s crown court. He denies one charge which alleges he assaulted Hannah Gavin, causing her actual bodily harm. Violence is said to have occurred at their South Henry Street home at around 4am on April 20.
Giving evidence, 25-year-old Ms Gavin told jurors the couple – now separated – had argued twice the previous day. The first row on April 19 occurred at a supermarket, and the second later that evening as they drank together in a Botchergate pub.
Thereafter they went their separate ways, Ms Gavin recalling she visited three other licensed premises before returning home in the early hours. “He asked me where I’d been,” said Ms Gavin, who recalled telling him: “I was in the Cumberland (Inn) dancing with a boy.”
She alleged Steel verbally abused her before turning violent. “He grabbed me by the hair,” she said. “I remember being on the floor and him kicking me in the face. At least twice. He kicked me on the back of the head.
“I remember screaming and crying; a lot of blood all over my face. I was in that much pain I couldn’t talk properly.”
Ms Gavin said she suffered mouth injuries, damaged teeth, multiple bruises and told the jury: “When I had a shower clumps of my hair came out.”
Steel, however, claims to have acted in self-defence. Jurors have heard he says he had been asleep on a sofa, and that “she attacked him”. The trial continues.
