A man has been jailed for six years after violently attacking a woman at a hotel - having previously been jailed for assaulting the same victim just three years previously.
Vile Adam Fox, now 29, repeatedly head-butted, punched, and strangled the woman to the edge of consciousness, mocking her while doing so, as the pair stayed at a Darlington hotel in March last year.
Fox chased after the woman to continue his attack after she managed to flee the hotel, but the woman ran in front of a bus for urgent help - with a member of the public phoning the police, putting a stop to the prolonged assault.
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Officers investigating the horrific incident soon discovered Fox was jailed in 2019 for attacking the same victim, who had since begun to build a new life away from her attacker.
But as soon as Fox, who is originally from Seaham, was released from prison he found the victim and entrapped her in a web of physical and emotional abuse once again.
Fox was found guilty of three counts of assault causing actual bodily harm, breach of a restraining order imposed after the 2019 prosecution and a newly introduced offence of non-fatal strangulation, introduced as part of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
And yet another afront on his victim, Fox forced her to relive the ordeal by giving evidence and being cross-examined at trial, before appealing his conviction and making her go through it again at Teesside Crown Court in December 2022.
Fox appeared for sentencing on February 15, and will spend six years and two months behind bars, along with a two-year extended licence and an indefinite restraining order preventing him from ever contacting the victim.
Investigating officer Heidi Weir, who led the investigation, said: “This is a truly sad case involving a victim who has been manipulated and coerced into returning towards her abuser.
“I know that she can turn her life around and become a stronger person with the help of support services and I hope that her attendance at court has shown her how much inner strength she has to make those difficult life changes”.
She also praised the young witness who, not only came to the victim’s immediate aid but subsequently became a vital witness in the trial and overcame his own fears to give evidence, and Sue Makin, domestic abuse innovations officer from the Darlington safeguarding team, who provided support for the victim throughout the investigation and trial.
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