AN ABUSIVE boyfriend has avoided jail after a series of violent outbursts dating back two years against his then-partner.

Greg Rooney, now 30, had a “volatile” two-year on again/off again relationship with the complainant between January 2018 and January 2020.

However a series of attacks – often born out of jealously – left his now-ex-partner fearing for her life.

Cardiff Crown Court heard the first of these took place as the couple visited Liverpool in August 2019.

Rooney saw the complainant received a message from a male friend, and flew into a jealous rage, eventually leaving her in the city.

When she returned home two days later, he appeared at her home, “tipped the bed up and rolled her off”.

He threatened to choke her – saying he needed her face to unlock her phone to access her messages – and when she escaped downstairs, he held her by the head and choked her until she blacked out.

Rooney also faced a charge of criminal damage, after throwing a bottle through the complainant’s window on October 18, 2019.  

A few weeks later, on November 1, Rooney pushed the complainant to the bed by her chest, before grabbing her by the head.

“She escaped from the bedroom and grabbed a hockey stick and hit him with it,” prosecutor Janet McDonald said. She called 999, but Rooney convinced her she would get in trouble for attacking him, so she hung up.

There was a further offence in January 2020, before, on January 23, Rooney arrived at her house shouting that she was being “disrespectful” for positing a fitness video online.

He hit her in the nose and there was a “crack”, and he “smashed her head against the boiler four times”.

The court heard this was “the most violent [Rooney] had been”, and that the complainant thought she was going to die.

Rooney, of Graig Park Hill in Newport, was arrested, and when interviewed, said he acted in self-defence.

He later admitted four counts of common assault and one count of criminal damage.

In a victim personal statement read out in court, the complainant said she had been left unable to work for a period of time following the assaults, and that she struggled to go out in Newport out of fear of running into Rooney.

“I still feel a shell of my former self,” she said.

Stephen Thomas, in mitigation, said: “He makes no excuses for his behaviour and takes full responsibility for what he did.

“He acknowledges the relationship was problematic.

“He states despite the volatile relationship, he should not have assaulted her. He said he feels ashamed.”

Mr Thomas added that Rooney had committed no further offences in the last two years.

Recorder Christian Jowett sentenced Rooney to four months in prison, suspended for two years, for each common assault offence – running concurrently. For the criminal damage charge, he received a four-week sentence – also suspended – running concurrently.

Rooney was ordered to pay costs of £1,250, and must complete 250 hours of unpaid work and 30 days rehabilitation activity requirement. He was also made the subject of a restraining order for five years.