Violent cowards who have attacked and abused innocent women have shocked and disgusted ECHO readers.
Our courts hear countless stories involving awful examples of domestic violence and attacks.
These ordeals have often left victims traumatised with long lasting psychological scars.
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Here are some of the most recent cases that have featured in our courts.
1. Sex attacker assaulted a stranger after luring her into his home with a pug
A boxing coach who sexually assaulted a stranger was a wannabe actor who had appeared on Hollyoaks and touted himself as playing a good villain.
Daniel Jones was jailed for 16 years after luring a woman into his house on the premise of helping his injured dog before sexually assaulting her.
He then trapped a female police officer in his living room as she tried to rescue his victim in July last year.
It has now emerged that, as well as running his gym and boxing business, the 47-year-old had in fact been pursuing acting in the years running up to the pandemic.
He had a number of roles as an extra on TV shows like Hollyoaks and ITV drama Paranoid.
Jones was sentenced to 16 years in prison, with a further eight years on licence.
2. Dad crawled streets in Audi offering girls cocaine for sex
A married dad-of-two sexually abused a teenage girl after plying her with cocaine and vodka.
Alin Cobzaru, 27, crawled Southport's streets in an Audi late at night, offering children "drugs in return for sex".
He was twice stopped by police with girls including the victim in his car and was told by officers she was only 15.
But just days after that warning, he took the "particularly vulnerable" girl to a party, where he molested her.
Following two trials at Liverpool Crown Court, the predator was jailed for seven years and eight months.
3. Mum and kids hide in bathroom as ex smears blood through home
A mum and her children hid in a locked bathroom while her ex-boyfriend "smeared" blood over their home.
Gregorz Ewiak and another intruder smashed through a living room window into his former partner's house.
When the terrifying ordeal was over, he sent her a text "threatening to have the children taken off her and her killed".
A judge told Ewiak his actions must have left Paulina Dziekan and her children - aged just two and seven - "absolutely petrified".
A the time of the attack Ewiak was subject to bail conditions, with an overnight home curfew, due to "extradition proceedings".
But the mum heard banging on her front door at around 10pm, before her living room window was smashed.
She rushed upstairs, collected her children from their bedrooms, and locked them in the bathroom with her.
Recorder Harris jailed him for two years and four months and also imposed a seven-year restraining order to protect the victim.
4. Thug subjected ex-girlfriend to horrific attack while being chased by police
A teenager rammed into a taxi, dragged his former girlfriend out, forced her into a stolen car and then beat her as he led police on a high-speed chase.
Kirk Davies followed the taxi after spotting his ex and her friends inside the vehicle on September 5.
Those inside the taxi told the driver not to stop after Davies gestured to them, but he then tailed the car and forced it off the road.
Summing up the incident, Recorder David O’Mahoney said: “You and your victim had been in a relationship. There is material to suggest it was, at least at times, violent and abusive.
“At 1.47pm on September 5 she was in the back of a taxi with two of her friends. You were driving in the same area. The car you had been travelling in was stolen and was on false number plates.
“You noticed your ex girlfriend and started gesturing to her.”
Davies then followed the taxi through Greenwich Road and Albany Road in Fazakerley before driving into the vehicle, forcing the driver to stop.
Continuing his summary of the case, Judge O’Mahoney said: "You opened the rear door of the taxi and grabbed her. She tried to resist but you pulled her out and forced her into your car.”
As Davies drove off, his victim said she felt as though he reached speeds of up to 100mph and “feared for her life”.
The court heard the 19-year-old repeatedly punched her to the head, pulled her hair and bit her before threatening to hit her with a hammer.
Davies, of Middle Way in Croxteth, was spotted by police on Sherwood’s Lane and pursued down Longmoor Lane until he crashed into a wall then drove off down Swainson Road.
Davies was sentenced to 22 months in a young offenders institution and disqualified from driving for two years.
He was also made the subject of a restraining order.
5. Teen left ex-girlfriend with glass shards in her shoulder after bottle attack
A teenager bottled his ex after a chance encounter on a night out led to a heated row that ended in violence.
His former partner was left with fragments of glass in her shoulder after Rio Jones’s attack.
Jones then shouted racial abuse at a passerby who rushed to help his victim.
Liverpool Crown Court heard there had been a "significant" age difference between Jones, 18, and his older partner before their relationship ended in “acrimony” last year.
CCTV showed the pair arguing on and off for most of the next hour with, at around 5.40am, Mr Hussey highlighting “the repeated screaming of his victim shouting ‘Rio, Rio, no, no’ and then she cries for help”.
Mr Hussey said some of this took place out of view of the camera, but then: “What then appeared is the defendant, wildly angry, coming into view while hurling a bag he was carrying to the floor, hurling his coat to the floor, and then throwing a punch towards his former partner as a doorman or security officer is trying to hold him back.
“He was ushered away to the other side of the street and he gets his coat back and then all is quiet until another seven or eight minutes later.”
At that stage, Jones reached to the gutter and picked up a bottle and turned towards his victim, Mr Hussey said.
He said that, as she attempted to flee, Jones aimed “a hefty, hefty blow which struck her on the blade of her right shoulder ”.
It was unclear whether Jones threw the bottle at his victim, or hit her with it, but the attack left her with a deep cut that contained pieces of glass, and a displaced fracture to her shoulder blade.
The judge handed him an 18 month sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered him to do 180 hours of unpaid work and 30 rehabilitation requirement days.
Jones was also made the subject of a curfew and a restraining order.
6. Thug threatened to 'send the boys round' to pregnant ex's house
Stephen Frail, 35, called at the home of the victim, his former partner, at around 8.30pm on October 28, 2020.
Liverpool Crown Court was told Frail and his victim had been seeing each other casually since November 2019 and the victim was five months pregnant at the time of the attack.
Ken Grant, prosecuting, told the court : "He entered into the hallway and kept asking her if they could get back together in a relationship.
"She later reported to the police that during this he was flicking a cigarette lighter on and off close to her face and at that point she became scared.
"She began to back away and told him she was scared of being in the property with him."
Mr Grant added: "He said: ‘I am dying to smash your head in'."
She asked Frail to leave and took hold of his coat in an attempt to escort him out, but this led to him putting both his hands on her chest and forcibly pushing her causing her to fall to the ground.
As Frail pushed her to the floor, she clutched her stomach to protect her unborn child because she was terrified of him.
The victim told police: “I fell on my bum and then on my back. This made me wet myself as he scares the life out of me."
The court was told he has five previous convictions for nine offences including common assault on a woman in August 2013 and breaching a non-molestation order in April 2016 for which he was sentenced to eight weeks imprisonment.
As well as battery and drug offences he was jailed for 18 months for three assaults and a common assault, all against women, in August 2016.
A judge jailed him for five months and imposed a 10 year restraining order to keep away from his victim.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY.
7. MMA fighter raped two university students and sexually assaulted another
Charles Goodwin, a mixed martial arts fighter, was told by a judge to expect “a lengthy period of imprisonment”.
The 21-year-old business management student was found guilty of three charges of raping one student in Manchester, and of assaulting her by penetration. He was also found guilty of one charge of raping a student in Liverpool.
The jury also convicted him of two offences of sexually assaulting a third student in Liverpool but cleared him of a sexual assault on a fourth student, also in Liverpool.
The attack on the first victim involved him holding her down by the throat and he was found guilty of attempting to choke her and assaulting her.
The court heard he had told her she deserved to be “treated like a princess” and picked her and carried her - before going on to violently attack her in her own home.
He had faced three charges of rape against the second victim - to whom he had said he was “a sex god” when she complained he had hurt her - but was cleared of two of those charges.
Goodwin, of Hilbre Street, Liverpool city centre but formerly of Salford, showed no reaction when the jury returned their unanimous verdicts after just over six hours deliberations.
But his father and grandfather, who stood in the public gallery as the verdicts were returned, afterwards shouted “Shame on this court, disgusting."
Remanding him in custody, Judge David Swinnerton told the student to prepare himself "for a lengthy period of imprisonment".
He added that he would ask for a pre-sentence report "to include the extent to which you present a danger to women and the outcome of that may affect sentence".
8. Woman's horrific injuries at the hands of thug who beat and raped her
These are the horrific injuries a woman endured at the hands of a thug.
Emmanuel Richards assaulted the woman on numerous occasions in a campaign of abuse over a 12 month period by strangling, kicking and raping her.
On one occasion, the 42-year-old chased her round a flat with a machete and on another occasion he boiled a kettle of water and threatened to pour it over her.
Following an argument, Richards threw the victim down some stairs which caused her to smack her head.
Then, as the victim laid on the floor crying, Richards proceeded to rape her.
The 42-year-old would also control the victim's movements and force her to hold drugs for him at her flat.
Images released by police show the woman's body full of bruises on her arms, legs and face.
Richards of Stamford Street Central, Ashton-under-Lyne was sentenced at Manchester Minshull Street Court to 18 years in jail after being found guilty of three counts of rape, two counts of assault and one count of controlling and coercive behaviour.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY
9. Coked up dad punched ex in face then cowered under bed sheets
A coked-up dad punched his ex in the face before hiding under bed sheets when she called the police.
Christopher Halewood showed up at the home of his former partner - who the ECHO has chosen not to name - and assaulted her, after taking cocaine and going to her address even though he was banned from doing so.
The ensuing assault saw the 39-year-old hit his victim in the face and drag her around the hallway by her hair before trying to throw an empty vodka bottle and an iron at her.
A judge labelled the dad-of-four a coward and a bully at Liverpool Crown Court.
Halewood, of Roseside Drive, Netherley was jailed for 30 months after being found guilty of assault and admitting four counts of breach of a restraining order.
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