Man Threatens To Kill Partner And Children After Being Woken Up By Child Playing Xbox

Content warning: The following article contains descriptions of domestic abuse, which some readers may find upsetting.

An Annesley man has been jailed for 21 months after assaulting his partner, after her son woke him up playing on his Xbox, Hucknall Dispatch reports. 

Bradley Blake, 29, of Fox Street, Annesley Woodhouse, admitted to assault causing actual bodily harm, and possession of a blade, following an incident on 11 March 2021, when he charged into the young boy’s room swearing, saying “it’s 2:30 in the morning”, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The prosecutor, Leeanne Summers, told the court that Blake had smashed and stamped on the Xbox while the boy “wept in distress”, before taking a table runner from the kitchen table and wrapping it around his partner’s neck to stop her breathing. He’d shouted that he was going to kill her, and her children.

Summers said that Blake's partner ran upstairs and refused to come down, so he punched her and dragged her to the top of the stairs. When she cried out of the window for help, he threw her on the bed, covering her mouth with his hand.

The victim then managed to run away to a neighbour’s house, after biting Blake’s finger, but when he followed her, she saw a 10-inch blade knife fall out of his pocket. He punched her in the back after she knocked on the door, but then ran away before being found by the police. Blake’s partner later moved house due to the assault, and was described as “'shaken-up and anxious”.

Mitigating, Benn Robinson said that this was an isolated, “out of character” incident for Blake, and that the three-month long relationship had come to a “boiling point” after he’d isolated with his partner and her family due to contracting COVID-19.

“I honestly wonder whether even now you appreciate just how serious this incident was,” Mr Recorder Adrian Reynolds said to Blake, sentencing. “You told the probation officer it was just a domestic. It wasn't - it was a piece of grossly unacceptable violence.”

Blake has been jailed for 21 months and suspended for two years. He’s also been given a restraining order, 25 days of rehabilitation, and 100 hours of unpaid work.