A husband who kicked his wife and then punched her in the face during a row at their Eden Valley home has been jailed.
Fifty-year-old Tristan Rutledge and the woman were married in March, 2022, having been together for a year before that, Carlisle Magistrates’ Court heard.
They had relocated from Surrey to the village of Kirkby Thore and it appeared, said a prosecutor, that their relationship had latterly not been going well.
On March 21 this year, the woman returned home at around 6pm. Her husband arrived through the back door and there was an argument in the kitchen as she was chopping mushrooms.
Intoxicated Rutledge kicked her to the leg before suddenly punching the right side of her face. “It hurt like hell,” the woman later told police. “My right eye swelled up and bruised very quickly.”
The woman moved into a different room, rang her sister, police attended and Rutledge was arrested. The woman spoke of vomiting after the incident. An ambulance was called, she was checked over but did not require hospital treatment.
Last month Rutledge, of Sandersons Croft, Kirkby Thore, admitted a charge of assault, occasioning actual bodily harm.
He was sentenced today following the preparation of a probation service pre-sentence report. The court heard he had past convictions for assaulting emergency workers.
Defence lawyer Duncan Campbell, mitigating, said Rutledge had little memory of the assault on his wife. He had been the victim of a previous violent attack by others, as a result of which — when conflict occurred — “he tends to blank out”.
Rutledge had a number of problems, was receiving some treatment and had spent several weeks in custody. “Prison is not the right place for him,” said Mr Campbell. “He needs to be receiving treatment on the outside.”
Magistrates concluded the offence was so serious that only immediate custody could be justified. Rutledge was given a 36-week jail term, and banned from contacting the victim for two years.
