A carpenter likened to "Jekyll and Hyde" left his 71-year-old mother terrified as he injured her arm and hurled abuse at her for hours. Sally Donnelly, who said her son Benjamin Donnelly is usually "nice and polite", fled to a neighbour's home to escape his latest attack on her.
Prosecutor Nuhu Gobir told Newport Crown Court that Ms Donnelly was at her home in Llanishen, Cardiff, with her son on the evening of October 14 when she questioned him about his use of cocaine and he became enraged. "The defendant started trying to pull his mother from her chair and grabbed her left forearm," said Mr Gobir.
The court heard Donnelly, 39, used such force that the skin on his mother's arm tore and she suffered an "ugly" injury. He repeatedly shouted at her: "Let's sort it out." She fell to the floor and when Donnelly saw the wound he said: "That's nothing."
