Jail for abusive boyfriend who "humiliated and degraded" terrified partner

Ryan Jowitt (36), of Newsome Avenue, Wombwell, left his victim on the verge of suicide during their two-and-a-half year relationship.

She said in a victim impact statement read out at Sheffield Crown Court: “My life with Ryan was miserable. It was horrendous to the point that I no longer wanted to be alive.

“I felt like nothing more than a punchbag and his slave.”

The court heard Jowitt had insisted his mother went everywhere with his partner, which had caused her to lose friends.

He also stopped her son coming round and estranged them to the point the son cut off all contact.

Mr Graham O’Sullivan said Jowitt would call his partner fat and ugly and make her get out of the car and walk - at one point doing so six miles from home as he drove alongside taunting her.

“He forced her to take his sleep medication and would hit her if she did not,” he said.

“He would call her a fat slag and hit her if she answered back.

“During the relationship, the defendant assaulted her, slapping, spitting and beating her.”

The court was told how on one occasion, Jowitt had grabbed his partner by the neck, chased her into the bedroom she had fled to, pinned her down and repeatedly hit her with a piece of wood which he had smashed off the door.

He was also charged with one count of assault occasioning actually bodily harm, relating to the occasion when he strangled the woman, smashed her phone and pushed to the floor, before repeatedly punching and kicking her in the head.

Mr O’Sullivan said: “He told her: ‘You will take what I give you, you fat, ugly slag.’”

Two other women at the scene had forced Jowitt to stop but he had kicked the victim in the back and then locked her out of the door, said the prosecutor

When taken to A&E, the woman was found to have extensive bruising and a broken rib.

The victim’s personal statement continued: “Every day felt like torture.

“I did everything to make him happy as I was always walking on eggshells.

“I was beaten on occasion to the point when I would urinate.

“I started to think the only way I would get away from him was to kill myself.

“It was easier to accept his abuse than challenge it as I knew that would cause another assault.

“I would not wish how I felt with Ryan on anyone else.”

The court heard Jowitt had 13 previous convictions for 16 offences including assault, battery and criminal damage.

Mr Benn Robinson, mitigating, said the defendant had suffered difficult formative years and been diagnosed with emotionally unstable personality disorder, as well as anxiety and depression.

He said the Covid lockdown had been “particularly difficult” for Jowitt and had an “overbearing effect” on him, and Jowitt had also suffered a hand injury requiring medication which had caused issues with his existing health conditions.

Mr Robinson said Jowitt had taken advantage of all available support in prison but found custody hard, and urged the judge to suspend the sentence.

But Recorder Angus Withington KC told Jowitt, who admitted assault, criminal damage, coercive and controlling behaviour, he had subjected his partner to “a series of humiliating and demeaning acts interspersed with threats of, and the use of, violence over a lengthy period”.

He added: “The court commends (the victim) for the courage she has displayed and fully appreciates the suffering you have caused.

“Your conduct was intended to humiliate and degrade her.”

Jowitt was sentenced to 30 months in prison, including two months for breaching a previous suspended sentence order, and handed a ten-year restraining order.