'Controlling' Telford man jailed after locking cancer-suffering partner in bedroom

Mark Bevan, aged 33, from the Brookside area of Telford, had been the registered carer to his partner of seven years when he began to engage controlling and coercive behaviour, Shrewsbury Crown Court heard on Wednesday.

Unemployed Bevan also strangled his victim on one occasion and threatened to burn down her family members' home, the court was told.

Prosecutor Mr Dean Easthope, told the court that Bevan had admitted five offences in total, including controlling and coercive behaviour, perverting the course of justice and strangling his victim.

He said the registered drug addict had committed the offences two months after he had arrested for being caught in possession of a knife and a small amount of the cannabis derivative, Spice, in Shrewsbury town centre, for which he was also charged.

Mr Easthope told the court that Bevan had been in a relationship with his victim for around seven years when his controlling and coercive behaviour began last year.

He said it started with him taking control of her phone, preventing family or friends from contacting her without going through him. He also took control of her finances and made her ask him whenever she wanted to spend any money.

Bevan was “paranoid”, he said, and thought his partner was cheating on him, and one one occasion he threw an ashtray at her that hit her on arm, and on another occasion, he punched her and gave her a black eye.