A MAN “simply exploded” and attacked his wife when she found out he had been unfaithful.

Christopher Powley, 42, headbutted his wife Michelle and fractured her nose and she was also left with a deformed jaw.

The incident happened at their home in Green Bank Drive, Flint, in June.

Mold Crown Court heard the victim did not want to see Powley again and was divorcing him but she did not want him, as father of their two children, to go to prison.

Powley, now of Sandy Lane, Prestatyn, admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm and was given a 30-week prison sentence, suspended for two years. He was ordered to carry out 100 hours unpaid work.

For the next six months he must not enter the grounds of the family home while the divorce goes through.

Judge John Rogers QC told Powley: “You carried out an wholly unprovoked and unpleasant assault on your wife.

“It was not only frightening for her, but she suffered nasty facial injuries including a fracture to her nose.

“A prison sentence is inevitable if a husband or partner assaults his partner,” he said

But he had decided to suspend the sentence because it was an isolated incident.
Karl Scholz, prosecuting, said the couple had been married 18 years but had been together a while longer.

“It appears that for about six or seven months before the incident, she had reason to suspect him of having formed an attachment with another woman at his place of work.”

At about 2.30 that morning she got up to get a glass of water so she could take a tablet, saw his mobile phone which had a text on it addressed to him which read ‘How are you? x’. She returned to the bedroom, woke up Powley and asked him to explain the text. He threw the phone to one side of the room, jumped out of bed and, in her words, “simply exploded”.

Powley punched her arms and leg, headbutted her on her forehead and hit her across the face.

“Almost immediately she found it difficult to breathe and asked him to phone an ambulance. He did not," Mr Scholz said.

In hospital, her injuries were described by a doctor as significant.

Five or six hours after the assault, her nose was still bleeding, she was unable to breathe through her nose and x-rays confirmed that it had been fractured.

She had a swelling on the centre of the forehead and had bruising and swelling to her eyes.

There was also a deformity to the jaw, which she could not open.

In a victim impact statement, she told how she had been off work for six months, had been diagnosed with depression and was on medication.

She was receiving counselling and had filed for divorce. But she had also said that she did not want the children deprived of seeing their father if he was sent to prison.

The defendant, in interview, was asked how many times he had hit her, and he replied: “I haven’t a clue.”

But in an interview for the pre-sentence report he had limited it to two or three times.

Robin Boag, defending, said it was conceded that it must have been a horrific incident.

He fully accepted his behaviour and appreciated the reaction of his wife to what he had done.

The defendant did not want to do anything further to upset his wife.

They had been together for 25 years and there had never been an incident previously and no significant problems.