'Her eyes were almost popping': Jail for Samuel Myers, who stamped on and strangled his ex-girlfriend in vicious attack

Samuel Myers, 23, from Malton, flew into a rage after accusing the victim of cheating on him.

She tried to get out of his way by going upstairs to her bedroom, but he followed her and launched a vicious attack in which he pushed her against a mirror, and punched her “repeatedly” in the face before dragging her to the floor by her hair, York Crown Court heard.

Myers punched, kicked and stamped on the victim while she was lying helpless on the floor. He then knelt on her arms to prevent her from fighting back, said prosecutor Michael Bosomworth.

“He placed his hands on her throat and startled to strangle her,” added Mr Bosomworth.

“She felt she couldn’t breathe; she felt dizzy.”

The victim, who almost passed out from asphyxiation, tried to get him off by pushing her hand against his mouth, only for Myers to bite her finger, said Mr Bosomworth.

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Myers eventually let her go and she fled to another bedroom, but he followed her in. She picked up a knife and pointed it at him as she tried to climb out of a window, but Myers “knocked the knife from her grasp and took hold of it”.

The victim, who was named in court, was trapped and tried to call police. She locked herself inside the toilet, but Myers kicked the door in and grabbed the phone from her.

By the time police were alerted, the victim had suffered a catalogue of injuries including “multiple” bruises, a “badly injured” eye, a bump on her forehead, scratch marks to her neck and cuts and scarring to her arms. Clumps of her hair had been pulled out.

Myers ultimately admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm and appeared for sentence via video link on Wednesday after being remanded in custody.

The victim said Myers had “belittled and controlled” her throughout their fraught relationship.

In the hours before the incident at the victim’s home in York on January 29, the couple had enjoyed a bottle of wine with a friend who had been looking after their dogs.

But after the friend left, Myers “became jealous” and accused her of cheating on him. He began rooting through her phone and checking her Facebook account for ‘proof’.

Myers’s prolific criminality meant he had spent the majority of their two-year relationship in jail.

The victim said she had suffered depression since the attack and had to up her medication for anxiety.

Myers, of Eastfield Avenue, Norton, had a long criminal record including previous attacks on his now former partner including one particularly barbaric incident in which he dragged her into the street, punched her in the face, banged her head against the ground to the point where she lost consciousness and then strangled her, before pulling her T-shirt over her head in an attempt to suffocate her.

In another incident, the victim ended up with her arm in a sling and a bruised mouth after another nasty beating in public.

Last year, Myers served a series of short prison sentences for breaching a domestic violence protection order imposed for the safety of the victim.

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He was also a prolific shoplifter and had previous convictions for aggravated vehicle-taking, damaging property, carrying a knife and a burglary in Pickering in which he put the victim in a headlock while making demands for money.

In 2018, he was jailed for assaulting two women in separate incidents – including his own mother. In one of those incidents, in which he attacked an ex-partner, police were called after “screams” were heard coming from a property in Scarborough where the victim was “begging (Myers) to stop”.

David Camidge, for Myers, said his client had been working with mental-health services and getting “drug assistance” while on remand.

Judge Simon Hickey told Myers: “You are only 23 years of age and but already you have managed to accrue a record (of) 28 convictions for no fewer than 59 offences.”

He said Myers’s “controlling and coercive behaviour came to the fore” during the dreadful attack in York.

“You knelt on her and strangled her,” added the judge.

“She remembers her eyes almost popping and she started to lose consciousness. This was a sustained and repeated assault. It’s had a significant effect upon her.”

Myers was jailed for 20 months and given a lifetime restraining order which bans him from contacting or approaching the victim or entering the street in which she lives.