NI Crown Court: Former primary school teacher receives prison sentence for domestic abuse

About this case:

• Citation:
  2026] NICC 10
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  NI Crown Court
• Judge:
  His Honour Judge Patrick Lynch

Delivering judgment for the Crown Court, His Honour Judge Patrick Lynch opined: “The defendant’s conduct was over a period of eight years. This was a continuous campaign of deliberately humiliating treatment directed towards his spouse and mother of his children for no reason other than his own self-willed desire to dominate, his arrogance with a total disregard for her welfare and that of his children.”

Background

The complainant and the defendant were a married couple living with their two young children during the relevant eight-year period.

The complainant alleged that the defendant frequently sent abusive text messages to her, followed her into the bathroom to shout at her, blocked her car to prevent her leaving, tried to turn the children against her family and blamed her for things such as the defendant losing his driving licence.

Further specific and one-off incidents of abuse were also alleged by the complainant, including telling the children that she did not want the defendant to be a part of their family anymore and smashing objects around the house.

The defendant pleaded guilty to one count of domestic abuse between 21 February 2022 and 7 November 2024, aggravated by reason of involving a child and one of harassment.

The defendant was 44 years of age at the time of sentencing and described himself as having grown up in a religious household.

The pre-sentence report considered that while the defendant had acknowledged some wrongdoing and accepted some blame, he failed to acknowledge the distress caused to her or the impact of his behaviour on their children and was assessed as a medium likelihood of reoffending.

A psychiatric report recorded that the defendant had no previous psychiatric history until 2016, when he left work as a primary school teacher due to stress. The report described the defendant’s mental health deteriorating from November 2024 following his marital breakdown and criminal proceedings.

The psychiatrist informally assessed the defendant as having above average IQ and accepted the complainant’s description of calculated and instrumental aggression.

The Crown Court

Judge Lynch considered that the familial circumstances of the defendant’s parents, which had been set out in mitigation, were not such as to attract a substantially reduced sentence or to affect the character of such sentence.

The court outlined that the sentencing in section 1 of the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (NI) 2021 had not been considered in any detail in Northern Ireland apart from in R v WD [2025] NICA 1.

Noting that WD dealt with a very specific set of facts, Judge Lynch explained: “Whilst it was held that the two distinguishable events on the one day constituted a course of behaviour the statement by the Justice Minister Naomi Long in introducing the second stage of the bill in The Assembly made it clear that the legislation was directed at the sort of behaviour evidenced in this case”.

Recognising that WD did not either set out a sentencing regime nor indicate the criteria for assessing culpability and degrees of seriousness, the court proceeded to describe a framework for the assessment of aggravating and mitigating factors involving analysing the behaviour itself, the effect the behaviour had on the victim, whether the perpetrator intended to cause physical or psychological harm or was reckless, and circumstances particular to the offender.

Finding that there were no guideline cases in Northern Ireland nor in any equivalent jurisdictions in the United Kingdom in this context, Judge Lynch considered that the legislature had determined that the maximum sentence should be 14 years’ imprisonment, which would inform the court as to the appropriate parameters.

Having considered inter alia the evidence and the victim impact statement of the complainant, the Crown Court opined that the defendant had waged “a continuous campaign of deliberately humiliating treatment directed towards his spouse and mother of his children for no reason other than his own self-willed desire to dominate, his arrogance with a total disregard for her welfare and that of his children”.

The court was satisfied that the persistent nature of the defendant’s conduct indicated a “deliberate, not reckless intent to cause psychological harm” and “Given his intelligence there must have been a full awareness of the effect of his behaviour towards the victim.”

Deciding to take a totality view and finding that the defendant’s culpability was medium to high, as was the harm caused, the Crown Court took a starting point of 42 months’ imprisonment.

The court explained that count 1 was charged with the statutory aggravator pursuant to s.9 of the Act to reflect the presence of children during many of the incidents, adding 12 months to the sentence therefor.

Conclusion

Having permitted a one-third reduction in the sentence to allow full credit for the defendant’s guilty plea, the Crown Court imposed a sentence of three years’ imprisonment on count 1, half in custody and half on license, with 11 months’ imprisonment to run concurrently for count 3 and an offender levy of £50.

The King v Kevin Jones [2026] NICC 10