SHOCKING | 

Man allegedly attacked partner with hammer and threatened to ‘rip out her eyes and eat them’

‘He told her he could murder her and still be out by the time he is 56’

Yesterday at 15:51

A man who proclaimed “the beast has arisen” before allegedly subjecting his partner to a drunken, violent and sustained attack where he threatened to kill her and “rip out her eyes and eat them in front of her,” was refused bail today.

Ballymena Magistrates Court heard claims that on the day their baby was Christened, 38-year-old William McGregor punched his partner on the arms while she was holding the 12-week-old infant, assaulted her with a crowbar and a hammer, threatened to choke her with a broken phone cable and told her he had to “punish her for what she had done.”

Standing in the dock of the court McGregor, with a proposed bail address at Eaton Fields in Ballymena, confirmed that he understood each of the six charges against him, all alleged to be aggravated by reason of domestic abuse and to have been committed on 20 August this year including causing actual bodily harm, possessing a hammer and a crow bar with intent to cause ABH, criminal damage to his partner’s phone, false imprisonment and making a threat to kill.

Objecting to McGregor being freed on bail due to fears of further offences and witness interference, a detective outlined how the complainant told police that after the couple’s baby was Christened on Saturday, “the defendant began drinking heavily and went upstairs where he fell asleep.”

He awoke sometime later and declared “the beast has arisen” before arguing with her about the Christening where he told her “he was going to beat the head off her and punish her for what she had done.”

The alleged victim locked herself in the bedroom but McGregor told her “she had five seconds to let him in or he would kick the door in.”

Armed with a hammer and a crow bar “he punched her to the right arm” while she was holding their baby and told her “I have to hurt you to justify what you have done” before he “grabbed her by the hair” and started to hit her.

The officer told the court that at one stage McGregor stopped and ordered the complainant “to look at him” but when she refused, he hit her with the wooden handle of the hammer, “got on top of her and was slapping her with both hands,” all while their three month old son was still in the room.

“He grabbed her by the hair and punched her to the head and body and pushed the crowbar into her head, causing a cut,” the detective claimed.

“He told her he was Jack the Ripper and he would rip her eyes out and eat them in front of her. He told her he could murder her and still be out by the time he is 56,” the court heard.

Although the complainant fled to the bathroom where she vomited McGregor allegedly followed her, shouting at her the entire time, “striking her four or five times with the hammer about the legs until she admitted that she was an unfit mother.”

The following Sunday morning, the “terrified” woman tried to leave the house but McGregor stood in front of her blocking the door and when she tried to call the police, “he smashed the phone and threw it into the garden.”

He went out to retrieve it but when he came back in, “he said he would strangle her with it.”

The complainant did eventually manage to get out the door and run down the street where she was picked up by a friend and taken to safety and McGregor was arrested on Tuesday evening.

During police interviews he denied the offences, claiming that he did not assault her but he could offer no explanation as to how she came to be visibly injured.

Defence counsel Grant Powles highlighted that “there is no domestic violence history” between the couple so he argued that the risk of further offending was low and that conditions of bail could be imposed to assuage other police concerns.

District Judge Nigel Broderick said while he accepted there was a presumption in favour of bail and of innocence, “I must take the prosecution case at it’s height at this stage” where, according to the police case, McGregor “perpetrated on the victim a sustained and serious number of assault and violence and threats.”

Revealing that McGregor has 31 previous convictions including common assault and assaults on police, the judge said that “indicates someone who has a history of violence and the address is clearly, in my view, not acceptable as its too close to the complainant.”

Refusing bail due to the concerns of further offending and witness interference, DJ Broderick remanded McGregor into custody to appear again on 21 September.