A WOMAN was left with appalling facial injuries after being punched twice by her partner during a row about an Xbox game.

But after hearing evidence at Carlisle’s Rickergate Magistrates’ Court, magistrates cleared 37-year-old Colin Wilcox of assaulting his then partner and causing her actual bodily harm.

They accepted his claim that he acted in self-defence.

The two-hour trial heard that the defendant and his partner of more than two years were at  their Penrth home on the evening of December 11 last year when the alleged assault happened.

The woman told the court that she had been playing an Xbox game with Mr Wilcox in the living room when she suddenly became aware of intense pain in her face and not knowing where she was.

Concluding that she had lost consciousness, she said Mr Wilcox by this stage was no longer in the house and the front door was open.  

A doctor later told her she had sustained a fractured eye socket, a broken jaw, and a perforated ear drum. The court was shown a photo of her face taken after the incident, the image showing her severely bruised and swollen face.

The court was then shown a text exchange between the couple which happened the following day. In it, the defendant claimed she was never knocked out and pleaded with her to not press charges, saying she would never see or hear him again.

He also accused her of throwing the three Xbox controllers at him.

She replied with an accusation tha the had “kept hitting her” after she was knocked out. Questioned about her drinking that day, she said he had only three drinks – two 330ml cans of lager and a pint of lager.

She told the court that when she woke the three Xbox controllers in the house were where they had been left, on a table and on the arm of the settee.

Defence lawyer Andrew Gurney asked her if her mood changed when she got drunk and she replied: “No. I’m happy drunk.”

In his evidence, Mr Wilcox, of Carleton Place, Penrith, said that by the early evening his partner that day was “extremely drunk. They were playing the Halo video game, having earlier had a shower and changed into their Christmas onesies.

They had been drinking after using an alcohol advent calendar after having a tea of chunky fish fingers, chips and mushy peas.  At a particularly difficult part in the game, he had taken the Xbox controller out of her hand because he could do it better – but she stood up and swore at him before going upstairs, he said.

Mr Wilcox then told magistrates that she had come back down the stairs with a bag of his clothing and told him to get out. Then, one by one, she threw three Xbox controllers at him, the first two hitting him in the face and the last one in his testicles.

“That hurts, obviously, me being a guy” said Mr Wilcox.

He then described collapsing in pain on the floor as the woman clawed at him and kicked him before dragging him up by his lengthy beard. “There was nothing behind her eyes,” he said. “I though she was going to get a weapon of some sort.

“She grabbed me by my beard and tried to pull me up to my feet, so I lunged forward and hit her hard in the face; I hit her to stop her further hitting me.”

He said he had never hit a woman in his life but on that day he was in fear for his life. After the incident, he had gone to Penrith’s police station because he felt he needed to tell somebody what had happened.

Under questioning from prosecutor George Shelley, Mr Wilcox said he sustained scratches and bruises but he had not sought medical attention, not mentioned this to the police and not had any photos taken of his injuries.

“This has been a horrible experience,” he said. “I have gone though every emotion conceivable.  I was antidepressants and thought about killing myself.”

Mr Gurney said the evidence supported the defendant’s claim that he had acted in self-defence, adding: “He accepts he feels remorse because he hit somebody he loved. He went to the police station as a safe harbour.”

Delivering their not guilty verdict, magistrates said they accepted that Mr Wilcox, when he delivered the two punches, genuinely felt he needed to defend himself. They noted also that the alleged victim was unable to recall how she was injured.

They noted also Mr Wilcox’s claim that she had consumed 12 rather than three drinks and that had been “uncontrollably violent.” They judged Mr Wilcox’s evidence to have been “credible and honest.”