A baby-faced abuser who wouldn't let his girlfriend go to the bathroom alone and threatened to kill her family has been locked up for more than three years.
Luke Mackie, 21, subjected Nicole Connor, 23, to almost one year of terrifying physical attacks and extreme coercive control - including choking her and removing her phone and car keys.
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He would refuse to let her use the bathroom alone, and hurled her to the floor during violent outbursts. When NHS nurse Nicole found the courage to end the relationship, Mackie followed her to work and her home, and hounded her with phone calls and abusive text messages.
Nicole told the Record she will never forgive her abuser but a weight has been lifted now he is locked up.
She said: "I'm relieved he's behind bars. He can't just walk away and do it to someone else - that was my biggest fear.
"He's scum and I will never forgive him. He's not sorry for any of it - he's only sorry he got caught. But I don't want his apology.
"I don't think he ever thought this day was going to come.
"It now feels like justice has been served and I can start putting this behind me."
Nicole's mum Michelle, 56, added: "It's the best Christmas present I could ask for."
Mackie pleaded guilty to 12 charges at Dundee Sheriff Court in October including the coercive control of Nicole between October 1 2020 and July 31 2021. He also pled guilty to four charges against a later girlfriend, four other assaults, including two attacks on police officers, two counts of threatening behaviour and possessing cocaine.
Branding his behaviour "truly harrowing", Sheriff Gregor Murray sentenced him to 40 months imprisonment.
Upon his release he will be subjected to supervision for 12 months, and has been ordered not to approach or contact Nicole or his other victim for three years.
Nicole began a relationship with Mackie in October 2020 but it became violent within weeks. She told how he would turn his nasty side on "like a switch" then carry on as if nothing had happened. On one occasion, Nicole says he throttled her in the kitchen before taking a shower moments later and singing the song Same Jeans by Dundee rockers The View.
After the relationship ended he continued to harass her for two months.
In one sinister message, he warned police might become involved, writing: "Better hope when I get in touch with the police it's not your name that they're speaking about - not be a good day."
Nicole now takes anti-anxiety medication and sleeping tablets to get to sleep. But she is still haunted by night terrors. After her ordeal, she moved back in with her mum Michelle, so she felt safe.
Mackie went on to meet another woman who he subjected to a fresh campaign of terror. He struck the second woman on the head and body at a taxi rank in Dundee in January 2022, then attacked two police officers who struggled with him.
A month later, at a Premier Inn hotel in Edinburgh, he brandished a boiled kettle at his partner, pointed a glass bottle at her neck and threw her onto a bed before spitting in her face and refusing to let her leave. He then spent a taxi journey to Waverley station calling her names, hurled her phone on a tramline and told her not to board a train before striking her in the face and kicking over her suitcase.
Mike Short, defending, asked the sheriff to put Mackie on the Caledonian Programme rehabilitation scheme as an alternative to custody. He told the court: "It used to be I thought going to jail was the best thing for most young men but as time has gone on people set up programmes and I believe, in the long term, this would be better for society."
However, Sheriff Murray said: "I have taken account of several mitigating factors: you are a first offender and you were willing to accept your guilt at an early stage. But these offences were truly harrowing."
Mackie showed no emotion as he was sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court on December 14, backdated to his remand date of February 28. He winked at his parents as he was led out of the dock.
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