A man who threatened to smash up his ex-partner’s mother’s grave during a terrifying ordeal in which he also assaulted the woman and spat in her face has been jailed for a year.
Darren Johnson, 45, had been in an on-off relationship with the woman since 2019 but the pair were not together on August 4.
On that date, Johnson turned up at her Carlisle home at 10am, she later recalling that he looked “full of hell”, the city’s crown court heard today.
After she refused Johnson’s request to be transported somewhere, he grabbed her forearms and throat, causing bruising. He then picked up a pizza knife and held it to his own neck before cracking the woman’s phone screen with his thumb.
After she relented and took him out in the car, he delivered a volley of verbally abuse and warned her not to travel near a police station. Johnson also used sharp tools and broken CDs to cut his body, spat repeatedly and deliberately in the woman’s face, smashed her phone with a mallet and broke the rear view mirror.
“He told her to take her to the cemetery so he could smash her mother’s grave up,” said Josh Bowker, prosecuting. “The defendant’s behaviour was so erratic and a following motorist was so concerned by what he saw in his rear view mirror that he contacted the police.”
As officers boxed in the car, Johnson warned the woman: “Stop crying and don’t tell the police anything.”
Johnson, of Garden Street, off Botchergate, was convicted of two assault charges, criminal damage and illegal possession of a blade and rolling pin, after failing to attend his court trial.
He had 60 previous offences on his record, including an earlier assault on the woman, in 2019, by repeatedly punching her and threatening to slit her throat.
The court heard Johnson had shown insight into his offending and was engaging with professionals after realising, said his barrister, he had reached “the end of the line”.
Recorder Mark Ainsworth jailed Johnson for 12 months and banned him from contacting the woman indefinitely. “The events of August 4 must have been frankly terrifying for her,” he said.
