Man who sank teeth into former girlfriend's cheek described as 'beneath contempt'

[dutchman]

Coventry man Adrian Hobday was jailed by a judge at Warwick Crown Court



A man with “an outrageous propensity for violence” sank his teeth into the cheek of a former girlfriend in what a judge compared to a gruesome scene from the Martin Scorsese film Cape Fear.

After hearing the attack had followed his victim ending their relationship because he had previously assaulted her daughter, a judge described Adrian Hobday as being “beneath contempt”.

Hobday, 29, of Hermes Crescent, Henley, Coventry, was jailed for three years and two months by the judge at Warwick Crown Court.

He had earlier pleaded guilty to using violence to enter a premises, criminal damage, inflicting grievous bodily harm and two offences of assault by beating.

Prosecutor Lucinda Wilmott-Lascelles said Hobday and his victim had been in a relationship for four months when she ended it after an incident at her Nuneaton home earlier this year.

Ms Wilmott-Lascelles added that Hobday had a number of previous convictions for violence, and at the time was on licence from a two-year sentence for inflicting grievous bodily harm.

Jailing Hobday, Judge Peter Cooke told him: “The court has to deal with a huge variety of offences and offenders.

“I tell you now, I don’t regard any class of criminal as being as contemptible as the men who use their greater physical strength to do harm to the women in their lives.

“Where that involves using force to get into their home and using violence in front of their child, who has also been the subject of earlier violence, I regard that as beneath contempt."

He added: “If the law allowed me to do so, I would pass on you an extended sentence. I think you are a profound danger to any woman who forms a relationship with you.

“The injuries were nasty. They were not as extreme as some we see, but this is a case where you intended, or were willing to inflict, more serious harm than was actually caused.

“You sank your teeth into her cheek. Martin Scorsese in the film Cape Fear had the character Max Cady do that to a victim to demonstrate just what a wicked character he was.

“You did all this in a place where mother and daughter should have been able to feel safe. The sinking of the teeth into her face constitutes the use of a weapon.

“A week before this you had assaulted a little girl of nine, who then had to witness what you did to her mother. She is a separate and distinct victim of your outrageous propensity for violence.”