A VIOLENT husband who launched a vicious attack on his wife, leaving her bloodied and bruised, has been jailed for almost two years.
Police body-cam footage captured Hannah Gavin’s piercing screams as officers attended a South Henry Street block of flats in Carlisle at around 4am on April 20.
After PCs forced entry through a communal door, they found Miss Gavin in the ground floor flat she had shared with 53-year-old Kevin Steel. Bearing an obvious facial injury, 25-year-old Miss Steel reported: “He has just attacked me.”
Steel – said to be a former Great Britain long-distance athlete – was arrested and denied an actual bodily harm assault charge. But after a trial at Carlisle Crown Court, he was convicted on a majority verdict, jurors also hearing he had assaulted her several times in the past.
Giving evidence about the latest attack, Miss Gavin said Steel – from whom she has since separated – verbally abused her before turning violent. “He grabbed me by the hair,” she told jurors. “I remember being on the floor and him kicking me in the face. At least twice. I remember screaming and crying; a lot of blood all over my face.”
In addition to facial injuries, she also suffered bruises to her body. “When I had a shower, clumps of hair came out,” she added.
Steel, who claimed he acted in self-defence, was jailed for 21 months.
“This was a totally unacceptable assault,” Judge James Adkin told him. “Anybody hearing the screams caught on the body-cam would be shocked and appalled by the violence you deployed to a much younger woman.”
Steel was also banned from contacting Miss Gavin in any way for 10 years.
