A WEST Cumbrian woman who fled from her violent boyfriend was assaulted by him a second time after he tracked her down to the Lake District, a court heard.
The drink-fuelled verbal and physical abuse that Darren Merritt meted out to the woman during their relationship and the way he blamed her demonstrated the “classical distorted thinking of an abuser,” said a judge.
The 49-year-old, formerly of Burnmoor Avenue, Whitehaven, admitted two actual bodily harm assaults.
The details of the offending were outlined at Carlisle Crown Court, though Judge Nicholas Barker ruled that other charges which were not proceeded with – alleging offences of strangulation and stalking – should lie on file.
A prosecutor outlined the offending.
He said that the couple began their relationship in March 2022 after meeting at the place where they both worked. By August of 2023, they had found a flat together in Whitehaven but the relationship was already “volatile.”
The woman described how in the spring of that year, in a “drunken rage,” Merritt twice punched her in the face, causing a black eye, a bloodied nose and a bruised left ear.
“It was about three months after that she decided she’d had enough,” said the prosecutor. Without telling Merritt, she took a bus home and went to live with her parents. “But he didn’t leave it there,” said the barrister.
In November, as she walked her dog near her parents’ home in the Lake District, they called her, warning that he had been seen near the property. The following month, after she boarded a double decker bus in Ambleside, he appeared.
“He reappeared in November at the café where she worked in Grasmere,” said the prosecutor. On New Year's Day, he walked into the café kitchen, telling her: “You didn’t think I’d come back again.”
He also verbally abused her.
The second assault happened on January 4 as the woman was walking home from work. He grabbed her from behind, pulling her to the ground. He thew her mobile phone away and grabbed her by the neck.
“You didn’t think I’d get you but I have,” he told the woman. Her ordeal ended after a colleague who was passing intervened. The victim suffered grazes to her knee and right elbow.
Jeff Smith, defending, said Merritt had an unhappy early life and involved himself with the woman in what became a “volatile” relationship.
He regretted the way he had behaved, said the lawyer.
As for Merritt finding the woman in the Lake District, Mr Smith suggested it was a chance encounter.
“He anticipates on his release going to live with his sister in Scotland, putting two or three hundred miles between him and the injured party,” added the lawyer.
Judge Nicholas Barker said Merrit subjected the victim to physical and verbal abuse, using derogatory and sexualised language towards her. It stretched common sense to suggest he met her in the Lake District by chance.
“There is very little mitigation,” said the judge.
“It’s hard to find that you are genuinely remorseful.” Merritt had shown no sympathy for his victim. “There was a degree of victim blaming,” continued the judge.
“In essence, [you believed] it was her who behaved in a way which caused you to behave in that way and so she was responsible. This is the classical distorted thinking of an abuser.”
He jailed Merritt, whose new address was given as Atholl Place, Inverness, for 14 months. A restraining order bans him from having any contact with the victim for two years.
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