JAILED: Brutal bully broke cancer survivor’s arm
A brutal bully who broke the arm of his cancer survivor partner as he dragged her downstairs was starting a two-year jail term today.
After a nine-year relationship, Steven Vanes was living apart from the victim when violence flared after he called at her Wolverhampton home to discover a male friend was visiting, the city’s Crown Court was told.
The 26-year-old defendant went out drinking and returned the worse for wear in the early hours of the following morning, explained Mr Omar Majid, prosecuting.
He was expected to sleep on the sofa but went up to her bedroom looking for an argument and woke their five-year-old son, who asked his mother for a glass of water.
Vanes followed her downstairs where he tried to slam an internal door in her face, said Mr Majid who continued: “She was halfway back up the stairs when he grabbed her by both ankles from behind and pulled hard. She fell, landing hard on her left side.”
The victim was crying out in pain when he slapped her face before snatching hold of the injured arm and twisting it, the court heard.
He laughed as she called the emergency services and was arrested by police.
A doctor confirmed her left forearm was broken during the September 8 incident.
The injury would not heal naturally and she had to have a metal plate inserted to realign the bone on October 14 and may have to live with it for the rest of her life.
She had previously been treated for bone cancer and has been warned the plate could interfere with the MRI scans needed to check the cancer has not returned.
The defendant claimed not to be able to remember the incident and was sent to the Crown Court for sentence after being convicted of causing grievous bodily harm following a magistrates court trial.
Vanes from Oaklands Green, Stowlawn was sent to prison by Judge Simon Ward who made a restraining order and told him: “When you got drunk or took drugs you had been violent and controlling towards your partner but she did not report this behaviour until this sustained attack that included an element of torture.”
