'Complete degradation': Abusive partner, 32, battered mother of his kids at Butlins and spat in her face - but avoids jail

Former armed forces serviceman Michael Phillips, aged 32, strangled his partner to the point where she thought she was going to die.

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However, a Shrewsbury Crown Court judge accepted his violence was “borne out” of his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from serving in Afghanistan, and so did not send him to prison.

The court was told that Phillips, of Jerry Rails Avenue, Dawley, Telford, and his victim were in a six-year relationship and have two children together. Phillips’s violence became a regular occurrence from January 2020 up until he was arrested in September 2023.

He would go to the pub with his friends, get drunk and take cocaine, before going home and getting violent towards his partner.

He attacked her when she was caring for a child, but also when she was pregnant.

On one occasion, Phillips slapped her with an open palm, before hitting her with the back of his hand a few weeks later, leaving her with a black eye.

When the victim was six months pregnant, Phillips pushed her down the stairs before he inflicted the “further indignity” of kicking her across the floor.

The victim was so worried about the baby that she went to hospital to get medics to check.

“You can only imagine how frightened and terrified for herself and her unborn child - your unborn child [she was],” Judge Deni Mathews told Phillips.

During one of his rages, Phillips kicked his victim through a wall at their home. Afterwards he said: “Look at how fat you are. You’ve broken the wall. I didn’t even kick you that hard.”

Judge Mathews said the words Phillips said were to “complete the degradation of that poor woman”.